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About Portland observer. (Portland, Or.) 1970-current | View Entire Issue (Feb. 22, 1979)
PORTLAND OBSERVER Volume 9 Number 7 Section II Thursday. February 22,1979 Roots: The Next Generations The publication o f “ Roots” — the epic novel o f the ancestors o f author Alex Haley — triggered an explo sion o f interest in family geneology throughout the United States. Haley had done what was thought im possible — had found the African village from which his predecessors had come. With the TV dramatization two years ago, “ Roots” became a household word. Thousands of Americans began to search through the historic records for their “ Roots.” The first “ Roots” television drama depicted four generations — Kunta Kinte, the African youth from Juffure village in Gambia, who was captured and sold into slavery; Kizzy, his daughter, t liicken George and his sons. “ Roots: The Next Generations” traces the later descendents of Kunta Kinte through nearly 100 more years o f turbulent American history beginning in 1882. The drama tells the story of the loss o f civil rights after Emancipation — when Blacks were denied the vote, en slaved economically, and murdered by white gangs. The family lives through the Depression and two World Wars. Unlike the earlier production, "R oots: The Next Generations” features characters who directly affected the life of Alex Haley, both as a youth and in his later life. Among them are Sister Carrie, a young Black school teacher who married the son of the leading white family in Henning, Tennessee, and went on to teach three generations o f the Haley family including Alex ‘:irr lim Warner, Carrie’ s husband, was ostracized by his family, but accepted into the Black community and became the beloved "Uncle Jim” to young Alex. It was such family members as Aunt Liz and Cousin Georgiz whose stories of the old African Kunta Kinte launched Alex on a twelve year search for the facts behind his heritage. “ Roots: The Next Generations” is a David L . Wolper Production in association w ith Warner Brothers Television, with David I . W olper as executive director. As a child Alex Haley learned the stories about Kunta Kinte, as did each generation before him. In the final expisode, Haley begins his long quest of his families "roots.” Finally in the village of Juffure, Gambia, the old village historian, reciting the clan’s history, men tions the name "Kunta Kinte."
