If you were alive in January 1977, you probably were glued to your TV set for eight consecutive nights watching the miniseries Roots with Lavar Burton starring as a young Kunta Kinte, who was kidnapped from his home in The Gambia and sold into slavery. Kunta was also supposedly the ancestor of Alex Haley who wrote ROOTS: THE SAGA OF AN AMERICAN FAMILY which was the basis for the TV series. I know I and my family was engrossed by the miniseries and ever since then I have been meaning to read the book. Well after almost 50 years, I finally got around to it! I think I had been putting it off because of its length at over 700 pages and because I pretty much knew the story based on the TV show. But I'm glad I finally read it. The book really provides a lot of depth missing from the series.
Of course this tells the story of Kunta Kinte, the young 17-year-old Mandinka taken from The Gambia and sold into slavery. The book goes into a lot of detail of Kunta's life in the Gambia before he was captured and how he and his tribe's people lived subsisting mostly on farming. The climate was sometimes harsh resulting in drought and a lack of food. Then the next section of the book after Kunta is taken described some of the most brutal and harsh conditions I have ever encountered. Kunta and other captives are stripped naked and placed in the brig of a ship, naked and chained. Conditions are nightmarish with the captives vomiting and relieving themselves as they lay chained with no cleanup of the vomit and feces. The novel goes on to tell of Kunta's descendants down through the years to Alex Haley.
I thought that for the most part this was very compelling reading. It took me a little longer than usual to read this book given its length and because I was distracted by some personal issues at home but I was always glad to get back to it. I did find some of the dialogue a little over the top. Haley used black slave vernacular throughout the story which sometimes sounded almost like portrayals of blacks in early motion pictures. Use of the N-word is also prevalent throughout. Here's a short example: "All white folks scairt us n*****s sometime gwine organize an' rise up togetherâ But n*****s ain't gwine never do nothin' together... "
So how much of the book is true? "Haley called his novel "faction" and acknowledged that most of the dialogue and incidents were fictional. But, he claimed to have traced his family lineage back to Kunta Kinte, a West African taken from the village of Juffure in what is now The Gambia. Haley also suggested his portrayal of life and figures among the slaves and masters in Virginia and North Carolina were based on facts which he had confirmed through historical documents." However, "some historians and genealogists suggested Haley did not rely on factual evidence as closely as he represented. They said that there are serious errors with Haley's family history and historical descriptions of the period preceding the Civil War. . .Historian Henry Louis Gates Jr. was a friend of Haley's. Years after Haley's death, Gates acknowledged his own doubts about the author's claims:
'Most of us feel it's highly unlikely that Alex found the village whence his ancestors sprang. Roots is a work of the imagination rather than strict historical scholarship. It was an important event because it captured everyone's imagination.'"
And then there were also allegations of plagiarism:
"In spring 1977, Haley was sued for plagiarism in separate lawsuits by Harold Courlander and Margaret Walker Alexander. Courlander, an anthropologist, claimed that Roots was copied from his novel The African (1967). Walker claimed Haley had plagiarized from her Civil War-era novel Jubilee (1966). Legal proceedings in each case were concluded late in 1978. Courlander's suit was settled out of court for $650,000 (equivalent to $3 million in 2023) and an acknowledgment from Haley that certain passages within Roots were copied from The African. The court dismissed Walker's case."
OK, well overall it appears there are some definite problems with the accuracy of Haley's history of his family. But it is still a very engrossing and compelling read and provides a very heart-wrenching story of slavery in America. I would still recommend this to anyone interested in this ugly part of our history.
I was initially prepared to give this book a 5, but it did start to drift at the end and the fact that I learned Haley may have plagiarized parts of the book did ruin it a bit for me. Nevertheless, it is still a pivotal book in American culture and spawned a mini-series that was one of the most watched shows ever, so I felt that it is something that I should read in my lifetime (I learned that my mom read it when it first came out when she saw it at my house on the table, so that was cool too). Roots starts with such beautiful imagery that you can picture the lush African backdrop. I didn't realize so much of the early part of this book took place in Africa, I thought it was mostly about Kunta Kinte adjusting to life as a slave, but seeing his true heritage really helps the reader to understand Kunta's motives and feelings. Later the story starts to feel as brown and yellowed as the old copy of the book I was reading. You feel Kunta's despair, the overwhelming hopelessness that seems to come over the lives of everyone as they face cruelty at the hands of their white owners (some are more cruel than others, but as it is pointed out in the story, even the kindest owner still owns a person and there's something wrong with that) and helplessness over their own lives. The story follows Kunta's descendants- his daughter Kizzy, her son Chicken George, his son Tom, and Tom's family (though this is where the story gets rushed in the last hundred or so pages) all the way up to Alex Haley. the author.
This book really makes you think about your own family and your own roots. A common theme throughout the book is sharing family history with the next generation so that you know where you came from. I doubt there are a lot of families today that can really trace their family back more than about two generations, so I can see how this book really influenced the idea of tracing one's genealogy.
Roots by Alex Haley
My rating: 3 of 5 stars
Having recently watched the 1977 TV mini-series "Roots" for the first time, i decided to read the Alex Haley book upon which it was based for Black History Month. Because of what Roots attempted to do, and the influence it and the series had, i wanted to give this book more than 3 stars. But . . no. The book Roots was billed as a work of history and research when it was first published. It in fact is a work of historical fiction which is loosely tied into Alex Haley's oral history. I think that its' aims were high, but it falls short.
I respect and embrace the many things Roots tried to accomplish. It gives the reader a raw view into the slave trade of the 18th century and how it brutalized and exploited people. It gives glimpses into the sophisticated and ordered culture of the African peoples, which were incorrectly portrayed by white Europeans as savage and primitive. It reminds us of the historical link each of us have to our roots and ancestors. It gives a glimpse into life in America as a slave, both first generation, and after many generations of slavery. I suspect that the picture painted does not even come close to actuality, but it nevertheless tries. All in all, Roots presents an interesting story, and perhaps is representative of many experiences of slavery in America. But by today's historical research standards, it should probably be considered a work of historical fiction rather than researched history. The author himself said as much years after it was published, amidst fallout from criticism and even lawsuits related to the contents of the book.
It is easy to find critiques and exposés on the internet with some simple searching. Please search and read if you want to know more. As a story, this is a good one, but not a great one. It is probably on par with the level of TV miniseries of the time. I think that much of the acclaim and awards garnered were due to the breakthrough of this subject matter into the mainstream public consciousness, and I suspect it was controversial at the time (1977). But as a book, it is a bit too long, and not well enough written for me to recommend it as a must read. If you want more details than the series provided, it is a good source. But read it knowing it is largely historical fiction that is tied to some real history.
Also, related to real history in the book, the method used to "timestamp" the narrative using historical events that were "overheard" or relayed word of mouth as they happened came off as simplistic, unrealistic, and downright annoying by the time the book ended. I think a better method could have been used to accomplish this. My $0.02
No other novelist or historian has provided such a shattering, human view of slavery.
