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."