Roots
Roots is a novel written by Alex Haley and published in 1976. It portrays the story of Kunta Kinte, an 18th-century African, captured as an adolescent and sold into slavery in the United States, and follows his life and the lives of his alleged descendants in the U.S. down to Haley. The release of the novel, combined with its hugely popular television adaptation, Roots (1977), led to a cultural sensation in the United States. The novel spent 46 weeks on The New York Times Best Seller List, including 22 weeks in that list’s top spot. The last seven chapters of the novel were later adapted in the form of a second mini-series, Roots: The Next Generations, in 1979. The book sold over one million copies in the first year, and the miniseries was watched by an astonishing 130 million people. It also won both the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Award. Roots opened up the minds of Americans of all colors and faiths to one of the darkest and most painful parts of America’s past, and we continue to feel its reverberations today.
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2011–2023years
33% recommend56% neutral11% critical
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What Hacker News says
- IMO it starts with a deep knowledge, deeper than the immediate and primal realities of what is happening presently, I would dare say an intimate knowledge of our stories and struggles, both through narrative fiction as well as our critiques, philosophies and dogmas throughout written history:
Check this out, another HNer and I shared some books: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23399364
Adding to it though, other excellent books and writers I think any ally should find the time to read:
Roots - Alex Haley
Revolutionary Suicide - Huey P. Newton
Locking Up Our Own - James S. Foreman
Negroland - Margo Jefferson
A Raisin in the Sun - Lorraine Hansberry
Where we Stand - bell hooks
The Future of the Race - Henry Louis Gates Jr. and Cornel West
Letter from a Birmingham Jail - MLK
- This model is cool, but also clinical: if you're interested in understanding what it was like to be an African kidnapped and sold via the Atlantic slave trade, consider reading Zora Neale Hurston's Barracoon[1] or Aley Haley's Roots[2].
[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barracoon:_The_Story_of_the_La...
[2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roots:_The_Saga_of_an_American...
- Roots by Alex Haley. My copy is read, re-read, worn, and well loved.
- The Playboy interviewer is Alex Haley, who conducted many notable interviews for Playboy magazine. He had another memorable interview with George Lincoln Rockwell, the leader of the American Nazi Party. Rockwell made sure Haley wasn't Jewish as they were arranging the interview, but was shocked to learn that the interviewer was black. He did seem to have a grudging admiration for Haley, as he continued corresponding with letters opening with "To my V.I.N." (N being the n-word).
Haley later went on to author many notable titles, including The Autobiography of Malcolm X (as ghost-writer) and Roots, which turned into a monumental TV series. Part of the show contains a reenactment of the meeting with Alex Haley and George Lincoln Rockwell, each played by James Earl Jones and Marlon Brando: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z8SxzNdX1MQ
- That's maybe not the most comforting example – Alex Haley's Roots was both convicted of plagiarism and seemed to be very amateurishly researched, to put it mildly. At least it was called "fiction", although it was sold in non-fiction sections. And the central claim was presented as if true; "he claimed to have traced his family lineage back to Kunta Kinte, an African taken from the village of Juffure in what is now The Gambia". The wikipedia page is fascinating, e.g.
"Donald R. Wright, a historian of the West African slave trade, found that elders and griots in The Gambia could not provide detailed information on people living before the mid-19th century, but everyone had heard of Kunta Kinte. Haley had told his story to so many people, and his version of his family history had been assimilated into the oral traditions of The Gambia. Haley had created a case of circular reporting, in which people repeated his words back to him."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roots:_The_Saga_of_an_American...
- Roots was advertised as a fictionalization of Haley's family lore.
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