‘Roots,’ the Series That Had Everyone Talking

39 Years Ago

Three days after Americans watched the Georgia peanut farmer they’d elected move into the White House, Kunta Kinte burst into their living rooms and stayed for a week. Stayed forever, really. “Roots” still ranks as one of the most viewed television series in history, but numbers are a feeble measure. It was the national water cooler; Americans took long, thirsty drafts, and lingered, sometimes looking one another in the eye and sometimes not.

Charlayne Hunter-Gault, reporting in The New York Times on Jan. 28, 1977, with three of the mini-series’ eight episodes yet to be broadcast, sampled the responses.

“Doubters and enthusiasts, whites as well as blacks, young and old, wealthy and poor had reactions they wanted to share,” she wrote. “Some laughed when a hungry Kunta Kinte, who was thought to have learned no English, suddenly thrust his plate toward the older slave, Fiddler, and said, ‘Grits, dummy.’ Some cried as Kunta Kinte finally gave in to the whip’s lash and accepted the slave name Toby.”

There were the patrons at Jock’s bar in Harlem, who had been gathering each night to watch:

“Joe Kirkpatrick, the owner, said that one night viewers got so angry over the treatment of Kunta Kinte that they would not allow the jukebox to be turned on even after the show had ended. ‘They just wanted to talk it out,’ he said, ‘and it wasn’t until they had talked and talked for a very long time that they finally remembered they were in a bar. ‘That’s when they started drinking up.’”

There were the awkward jokes:

“A black man carrying an attaché case stepped into the elevator of the predominantly white company where he worked.