Roots (TV Miniseries) - Plot Summary

Plot Summary

In The Gambia, West Africa, in 1750 Kunta Kinte is born to Omoro Kinte, a Mandinka warrior, and his wife, Binta. When the son reaches the age of 15, he and a group of other adolescent boys take part in a tribal "coming-of-manhood" training and ceremony, after which they become recognized as men and Mandinka warriors. While trying to carry out a task to find and catch a prey bird, Kunta spots white men carrying firearms, along with their black collaborators. Later, while seeking wood outside his village to make a drum for his brother, Kunta is captured by black collaborators under the direction of white men. He is then sold to a slave trader and placed aboard a ship under the command of Captain Thomas Davies for a three-month journey to Colonial America. During the voyage a group of rebels among the human cargo try to stage a mutiny and take over the ship but fail to do so.

The ship eventually arrives in Annapolis, Maryland, where the captured Africans are sold at auction as slaves. John Reynolds, a plantation owner from Spotsylvania County, Virginia, buys Kunta and gives him the name of Toby. Reynolds assigns an older slave, Fiddler, to teach Kunta to speak English and to teach him the ways of living and working as a chattel slave. Kunta, in a desperate struggle to become free, makes several unsuccessful attempts to escape. Further, to preserve his Mandinka heritage and maintain his Mandinka roots, he wants not to change his name to Toby. An overseer, Ames (Vic Morrow), gathers the slaves and directs one of them to whip Kunta after his latest attempt to escape and to continue whipping him until he finally submits to his new name.

The adult Kunta Kinte learns what it means to be a chattel slave, and he feels haunted by his Mandinka roots and his memories of freedom at home in Africa. John Reynolds, his owner, does not receive as much cash as he had expected from the sale of his crop of tobacco, so, to settle his debt to his brother, Dr. William Reynolds, the local physician, he transfers several of his slaves, including Toby, to William. Kunta tries again to escape, but a pair of slave catchers seize him, bind him, and chop off about half his right foot (to limit his ability to run away again). Kunta meets Belle, the cook for William's family, and Belle treats Kunta's mangled foot and his wounded spirit. He eventually submits to the harsh life, and he marries Belle in a ceremony involving a jumping of a broom. Belle bears a daughter, to whom Kunta gives the name of Kizzy. Fiddler had continued to mentor Kunta, and Fiddler dies at an old age.

Kizzy is secretly taught to read and write by Missy Anne, the product of an adulterous affair between John Reynold's wife and Dr. Reynolds. When Kizzy is in her late teens, she is caught writing a fake travel pass for a boy she is in love with, Noah. Missy Anne turns her back on Kizzy when Kizzy needs her the most, which makes Kizzy think white people aren't to be trusted. She is then sold away to Tom Moore (Chuck Connors) in North Carolina. Kizzy is raped by Moore when she arrives at his plantation and, as a result, gives birth to a son named George. Kizzy does return to the Reynolds' plantation to try and see her parents, only to find out that Belle was sold away and Kunta has died from broken heart. Kizzy then scratches off his slave name and writes his real name on his tombstone.

The adult George becomes an expert in cockfighting, earning him the moniker "Chicken George", which eventually gives him the opportunity in the 1840s to be sent into servitude in England. He returns to America a free man 14 years later in 1861. George's son Tom Harvey (Georg Stanford Brown) becomes a blacksmith—and a slave for Sam Harvey - whose slave labor is used by the Confederate Army during the American Civil War. After the war, white men led by Evan Brent give birth to an early form of the Ku Klux Klan, and begin to frequently harass Tom, his family and other blacks — exploiting them economically by day and terrorizing them by night wearing the infamous white hoods. The problem escalates when Tom reports the issues to authorities and Brent finds out about it. However, Chicken George returns after the news of blacks being freed, and tells his family of land he bought that they may live in. Afraid of the Ku Klux Klan, especially after receiving a whipping from one of them, Tom and his family move to George's land in Henning, Tennessee to begin a new life. And as the series ends in 1870, Chicken George tells his grandson about his grandfather, the African who went to find some wood for a drum, and was captured by the slave traders in 1767.

Alex Haley narrates the last few minutes of the miniseries: a montage of photos of family members connecting Tom's daughter Cynthia, the great-great-granddaughter of Kunta Kinte, to Haley himself.