There are so many that take this mini series as an empirical truth, in the end Mr. Haley committed the worst sin of an author.

Soon after this mini-series first came out on television, I remember that the biggest 'shock' that was written about and publicized wasn't about the cruelty and unfairness of slavery; or, the praising of its all-star cast and production; or, even Alex Haley's achievements as a writer!?!? It was about the actor, Ralph Waite (Daddy Walton on "The Waltons") - the once family-friendly patriarch of a nice family now using racially-degrading terms!?!? WHAT!?!? That's what people found most important about this mini-series...a talented 'white' actor being criticized for portraying a white-slave-trader 'character,' written about by a talented 'black' writer!?!? What was he supposed to do...pass-up the role? If he had, someone else would have done it!Since then, I've read a lot of reviews, on and off of IMDb, about how this isn't really based upon Alex Haley's own 'roots;' how it's plagiarized from another writer; that it's altogether 'fake;' etc; etc. Who cares!?!? This series depicts human nature and how people were throughout an old period in American History...EVERY American's American HISTORY!It's a great read as a book, and, a great achievement as a mini-series! Whether or not these events happened in-full or in-part as they are depicted, they had to have happened somewhere at some time. Maybe in Africa, Asia, and/or South America during their European colonization; maybe in Asia when Japan raped Nanking, China, and, other nations before and during World War II; maybe in Africa, or, anywhere else in the world (Europe; Native America; etc.), when one tribe of people enslaved another; etc.If any or all of this is the case...then, "Roots" isn't only an 'American' story...it's a worldwide "HUMAN" story. A story of mankind's darker side in general - about what happens when 'any' powerful people invade and enslave 'any other' weaker people, anywhere in the world, past and present.If that's the case, then, 'this' is the 'real' "GREATEST STORY EVER TOLD"...only told in an old American setting.

Back in 1977 the miniseries Roots told the story of Kunta Kinte, one of many young people kidnapped from the west coast of Africa and transported across the Atlantic to be sold into slavery in the southern US states. While this was perhaps a brave subject for TV in 1977, such tales had been sensationalist popular fiction for some time. But Roots went further: it went on to recount Kunta Kinte's life, and followed the lives of his descendants up to the point where his modern day descendant Alex Hailey, author of the book from which the TV series was developed, went to Africa in search of his ancestral roots, and tracked down his far-distant family in the village from which Kunta Kinte had been kidnapped.This inspiring story - extremely well told in the TV series within the standards of the time - was then damaged by the revelation that Hailey had blatantly copied large chunks of story material relating to Kunta Kinte's life in Africa from a work by another author: the plagiarism suit was ultimately resolved with an out-of-court settlement, but the damage had been done.This is an enormous shame because the importance of this series cannot be underestimated. The impact on TV in general was vast, but the impact on the viewing public was even greater - it brought a degree of awareness to a relatively ignorant western world as to exactly what the forebears of the black population had been through (albeit somewhat softened for TV consumption). And notwithstanding the specific untruth of Hailey's plagiarism, the fact remains that the TV series told a wider truth, and in a way which was accessible to a wider public.The adaptation was excellent, the casting and performances were, for the most part, first rate, and Quincy Jones' theme was memorable.

This TV mini-series has become a classic in some twenty or thirty years and it deserves to be, both in its first part and in its second part. Yet the quality of the filming and editing has aged and the film is not served by the fact it was done for television that tends to show too many close-ups and to avoid vast rapid movements and wide landscapes. But it has become a classic by the theme it deals with. The first mini series deals with the fate of black people from when they were captured in Africa to their liberation after the Civil War. The vision of Africa in the 18th century is slightly improved on what it was. Some rituals are nicely evoked but not shown, circumcision for example, and nothing is said about excision for the girls. The capturing of Bantu blacks in western Africa and their enslaving had been going on for centuries. The new thing is that the captured Bantu blacks were no longer sold as slaves to the northern Moslem tribes or even Moslem Maghreb people, but to the whites for only one reason: the whites paid better and more. This is not done out of decency. It seems to be done in order to avoid any rejection for the family public, any restrictive rating. It is the same thing with the whole period about slavery. The film concentrates on odious facts but all together rather limited facts: one whipping, a couple of children sold, very few rapes by the whites in order to produce mulattoes that could be sold for a profit. The hardships of field work are also curbed a lot. The living conditions and quarters were quite luxurious when we know what it really was. Even the Civil War is shown with a lot of reserve. They may say the number of dead but they don't show the battles, the medical care of the wounded, the savagery of the war itself and the innumerable amputees and other victims after the war. Altogether the first part is rather tamed. That of course enhances the main theme of this first part, and also of the second part, the fact that one has to retain the memory of one's origins, roots, past, even if it is only a name, a few words, a few episodes. It is those recollections passed from one generation to the next that feed and strengthen the sense of belonging, the hope that will bring the future out of the present, the light that may one day illuminate the dull and dark present. One day at a time but always with the past in the conscious background. And the joy of the liberation is important, but the first part ends on a closure too: the whites are still there and the blacks have to live with them and compromises are not always easy to find and not always to the real benefit of the blacks. Slavery is replaced by sharecropping but what's the difference when the black sharecroppers start with the debts that are attributed to them to pay for what they need to work and they should get free since they worked for nothing for decades. That's how it works with the whites in the South, and yet the family we are speaking of managed to finagle a plan to get the mules free and to move out without paying for the debts of slavery from North Carolina to Tennessee where one freed member who got the chance to make some wealth in England had bought some land. That's the real freedom this family achieves after the Civil war: to possess the land they till and thus the harvest they grow.Dr Jacques COULARDEAU, University Paris 1 Pantheon Sorbonne, University Paris 8 Saint Denis, University Paris 12 Créteil, CEGID