history: its 200-year participation in the transatlantic slave trade and the racism that became institutionalized throughout the country up until the 1960s, barely a decade before Roots aired.
Nearly 40 years haven’t dimmed its ability to illuminate one of the grimmest aspects of U.S. The revelations cast a pall over the program’s reputation, which is a shame. The source was a book by Alex Haley, co-author of The Autobiography of Malcolm X it was described as nonfiction until the 1990s, when African-American historians and genealogists checked Haley’s account of his family’s experiences as slaves in North Carolina and Virginia and decided that it was filled with conjecture and historical inaccuracies. Wolper, who specialized in blockbuster documentaries and mini-series (including 1982’s The Thorn Birds). It aired across eight consecutive nights in January 1977 - a go-for-broke gesture by ABC, which made the mini-series out of a sense of social obligation and wanted to “burn off” the entire run quickly in a mostly dead programming month. Roots is the most important scripted program in broadcast network history.
Ahead of its premiere, Matt Zoller Seitz revisits the original series. History Channel will air a remake of Roots over four consecutive nights, beginning May 30.
LeVar Burton as Kunta Kinte in the original Roots.
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