100 million people gathered for the finale of “Roots”. A historic audience which made the series a historic program.
On January 23, 1977, ABC broadcast in the United States the first episode of the mini-series Roots, adapted from the novel of the same name by Alex Haley. The channel did not know then that the show would become one of the biggest hits on television, and its finale would be followed by 100 million viewers around the world. Historic figures!
It is estimated that 85% of households with television watched at least one of its eight episodes, all broadcast one per evening from January 23 to 30, 1977. We follow Kunta Kinte (played by a very young LeVar Burton) , African captured and enslaved in the 1700s, and forcibly taken to America. Racines explores his journey at different times in his life.
Roots is one of our 5 films and series to watch or rewatch on the slave trade
ABC
LeVar Burton
Racines is one of the first works intended for a very general public presenting white people as the villains and opposing them to black people, the true heroes of this story, without reducing them to their status of victims.
Even though The Jeffersons had existed for two years, a pioneering sitcom, occasionally tackling very deep subjects linked to African-American culture and history, Roots brought a “filmed documentary” aspect via the hand of its producer David L. Wolper, and assumed to turn to drama to directly address the history of the African people.
Media specialist Adrien Sebro analyzed for CNN in 2023: “[Roots] played a defining role in the way we viewed TV; black life, how black people came to America, was told truthfully. It laid the foundation for the deep storytelling and breadth that could be found on television.”
THE success of the series has been such that several spin-off series have emerged over the years. First Roots: The New Generations from 1979, with Debbi Morgan, Dorian Harewood and guests Henry Fonda, Pam Grier, Olivia de Havilland and Marlon Brando, then Roots: The Gift, with the return of LeVar Burton. A new adaptation of the novel was released as a miniseries in 2016 with Malachi Kirby in the role of Kunta Kinte.
Legacy: the example of rap
This character has also had a second life in rap music, in the United States and in France. From 1992, Passi wrote in the title Damned from the AMER Ministry: “Do I have a right to my land? Did our ancestors have rights or was the pattern once again damned people like Kunta Kinte, before your laws?” I AM sign the piece outright Temperament Kunta Kinte in 1997 :
Irons on the hands, chains on the feet, we drag a ball / (…) Embittered residents of the slave ship / Servants of our slavery, armed with Kunta Kinte / Illiterate savage nicknames.
ABC
In 1999, the Bisso Na Bisso collective chose Roots as the title of his first album. In the song Kunta Kinte – Child of Destiny (2012), the rapper Médine devotes more than 7 minutes to telling the story of the character and the symbol of slavery that he now represents. Again in 2023, the rapper Slkrack published a title directly taking an extract from the series and symbolically titled… Kunta Kinte.