| Roots: The Next Generations | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Created by | Alex Haley |
| Based on | Roots: The Saga of an American Family by Alex Haley |
| Screenplay by | Ernest Kinoy |
| Directed by | John Erman (eps. 1, 3, 4, 7) Charles S. Dubin (ep. 2) Georg Stanford Brown (ep. 5) Lloyd Richards (ep. 6) |
| Starring | James Earl Jones Dorian Harewood Irene Cara Stan Shaw Georg Stanford Brown Debbi Morgan |
| Theme music composer | Gerald Fried |
| Country of origin | United States |
| Original language | English/Mandinka |
| No. of episodes | 7 |
| Production | |
| Executive producer | David L. Wolper |
| Producer | Stan Margulies |
| Running time | 840 minutes |
| Production companies | David L. Wolper Productions Warner Bros. Television |
| Budget | US$16.6 million |
| Original release | |
| Network | ABC |
| Release | February 18 (1979-02-18) – February 24, 1979 (1979-02-24) |
Roots: The Next Generations is an American televisionminiseries based on the last seven chapters ofAlex Haley's 1976 novelRoots: The Saga of an American Family. First aired onABC in February 1979, it is a sequel to the1977Roots miniseries, tracing the lives ofKunta Kinte's descendants inHenning, Tennessee, from 1882 to 1967.
Roots: The Next Generations was produced with a budget of $16.6 million, nearly three times larger than that of the original.[1] The screenplay was written byErnest Kinoy.[2]
For the first part of the story, seeRoots.
The story resumes in 1882, twelve years after the arrival of "Chicken George" Moore and his family in Henning inWest Tennessee. George, elderly and showing his age, moves in with Tom Harvey, one of his sons, along with Tom’s wife, Irene, and their two daughters, Elizabeth and Cynthia. Tom, agreat-grandson ofKunta Kinte, has become a leader of theBlack community in Henning. Although he has established a working relationship with the town's white leader, Col. Frederick Warner, a formerofficer in theConfederateArmy, race relations are strained, due in part to the newJim Crow laws and similar influences.
Col. Warner's younger son, Jim, meets Carrie Barden, a youngAfrican Americanschoolteacher and a graduate ofFisk University, a Black school inNashville (the capital of the state inMiddle Tennessee). Tom has taken the lead in hiring Carrie for the local school for the Black children. Col. Warner disapproves of the relationship between Jim and Carrie, so he seeks to persuade Tom to fire Carrie or to close the school.
After an argument between Tom and his older daughter, Elizabeth, about his refusal to accept hersuitor, John Dolan, because he is half white (although Irene reminds Tom that his father Chicken George is also half white, and Tom himself is a quarter white), Tom decides to allow Carrie to continue teaching. Jim and Carriemarry inMemphis. Col. Warnerdisinherits Jim, but he says that he will ensure that no harm comes to the couple from the hoodlum white element of the town. Jim, with his newbride, receives a warm welcome to the local Black church.
A year later in 1883, Chicken George dies at age 83 (note inRoots, George is said to have been born in 1806, which would make him 77), and the family bury his body beside that of his wife, Mathilda "Tildy", who died in 1875 at age 76.
Thirteen years later, in August 1896, Elizabeth, Tom's older daughter, arrives fromKansas City, Missouri, for an extended visit, amid tension between Tom and Elizabeth, due to Tom's rejection of her suitor years before. Cynthia "Cinthy", Tom's younger daughter, meets Will Palmer, a hard-working young man. After a properly supervisedcourtship, the couple marry in their church.
Andrew Warner, anunemployedplayboy and the older son of Col. Warner, becomes interested in politics, and he eventually opposes his father in the public arena.
While Will works for Bob Campbell at hislumberyard, he does so in such an enthusiastic, industrious and effective way that he attracts the attention of both Col. Warner and T.J. Calloway, the local banker. Because of Campbell's increasing problems with alcohol and his decreasing attention to his business, and after Campbell'sdefault on his loan from the bank, Callowayforecloses, takes over the lumberyard, sells it to Will andfinances his purchase. Thus, the R. Campbell Lumber Company becomes the W.E. Palmer Lumber Company.
By this time, Jim and Carrie already have a son, named Frank "Frankie", and they live peacefully and happily in the Black community of Henning. However, in the atmosphere of the growing anti-Black attitudes in theSouth during the 1890s,racial tension increases in Henning too, as several incidents demonstrate. Tom is turned away when he again applies to register tovote, and he forcefully insists that every time since theCivil War, he has voted without interference, in bothAlamance County, North Carolina, and inLauderdale County, Tennessee.
Will and Cinthy rejoice over the birth of their daughter, Bertha George, named in part in honor of Chicken George, one of hergreat-grandfathers.
By September 1914, after 17 more years, telephones, electricity and automobiles have arrived in Henning, both the town and Will Palmer's lumber company have grown, both Tom and Irene Harvey have died, as has Mrs. Warner, and Andrew Warner, the colonel's older son, now serves as a member of theUS House of Representatives.
Dr. Frank Warner, the son of Jim and Carrie Warner, has completedundergraduate college,medical school, aninternship and aresidency, and he's about to start hismedical practice. Cinthy calls him "the first colored doctor in the county".
Will and Cynthia send their daughter Bertha toLane College, a Black school inJackson, Tennessee.
Col. Warner, frail and confused, collapses on a street while Jim, Carrie and Frank are present nearby. They rush to him and Frank starts to treat him. However, Earl Crowther, the Warnerchauffeur, and a gang ofrednecks take charge, ignore both Jim and Frank and nudge them aside, and insult Frank, who predicts that the colonel will die before they get him to the white physician. He does indeed die.
At the college, Bertha meets and soon falls in love withSimon Alexander Haley, awaiter in the dining room and a son of asharecropper, who lives and works nearSavannah, inHardin County, Tennessee, about 116 miles due east of Memphis. Simon, who greatly admiresBooker T. Washington, quotes to Bertha from his writings, including these words: "The wisest among my race understand that the agitation of questions of social equality is the extremest folly, and that progress in the enjoyment of all the privileges to come to us must be the result of severe and constant struggle rather than artificial forcing." Referring to Washington, Simon says, "I have formed my life in his image."
TheKu Klux Klan resurges in Henning. They burn across, hold aparade and burn down the clothingstore of aJewish merchant, Mr. Goldstein, who has moved to Henning fromChicago, Illinois, and who returns there.
Simon leaves Lane College, and he has made plans to continue his education at the Agricultural and Technical (A&T) College of North Carolina (which later becomes renamed as theNorth Carolina Agricultural and Technical (A&T) State University), inGreensboro, North Carolina. He has applied to enroll in the school and has arranged to work on the campus to pay for hisroom and board.
His father, Alec Haley, has promised to give him $50 to pay for histuition, but now he tells him that he cannot keep his promise because of the recent poor crops due to floods andboll weevils. To avoid becoming anindebted sharecropper himself, Simon works the summer as a railwayporter for thePullman Company. He works with an older porter, Dad Jones, who becomes his fatherly friend and—in one instance with another porter—his protector.
During one trip, Simon meets and talks with a kindly and wealthypassenger, R.S.M. Boyce, anexecutive of theCurtis Publishing Company, the publisher ofThe Saturday Evening Post and several other well-known magazines. They discuss Simon's plans and difficulties. When Boyce steps off the train, he hands to Simon a generoustip and one of hisbusiness cards, inviting him to inform him of his progress. When Simon leaves his position to return to school, he learns that Dad was fired for discussing unionization of the porters with alabor spy. When Simon arrives at the college, he learns that Boyce has already paid for the coming year in full for histextbooks, tuition, and room and board.
Simon and Bertha continue to keep in touch with each other, and Bertha and her parents, Will and Cynthia, travel to Simon's graduation, where he will receive hisbachelor's degree in agriculture. When the family arrives at the campus, Bertha receives a message that Simon and six of his classmates have just left andenlisted in theUS Army for service in theWorld War. The young couple see each other briefly when Simon and his all-Blackplatoon ofrecruits board a train to go to the next stage in his life.
During May 1918, Simon receives hisbasic training in an all-Blackcompany atCamp Grant, Illinois, nearRockford, about 85 miles west-northwest of Chicago, then he, in an all-Black outfit, goes to France and takes part in the fighting against theGerman Army ofKaiser Wilhelm II.
Before Simon goes overseas, Bertha meets Simon in Chicago for a weekend (after Elizabeth pleads Bertha's case with Will, who first has vigorously opposed such a trip but eventually allows it). While Simon is in the Army inFrance, Cousin Georgia Anderson, from Kansas City, visits Will and Cinthy, and she reveals that Chicken George fought with theUnion Army during theBattle of Fort Pillow, due west of Henning, on theChickasaw Bluff, overlooking theMississippi River. (That point implies that he survived the infamousMassacre of Fort Pillow.)
In July 1918, Simon receives word in France that his father has died in a hospital in Memphis; in due time, after the end of the war, Simon returns to the United States.
Andy Warner raises his political sights even higher, and he becomes elected to theUS Senate.
After the Army discharges Simon, on his way back home to Henning, he and his army associates stop at the home of one of them inKnoxville, inEast Tennessee. While they are there, theKnoxville Riot of 1919 (a part of theRed Summer of 1919) takes place. Earl Crowther, now anaide to Sen. Andrew Warner, goes to Knoxville to take part in the mischief, and he dies there (at the hands of one of Simon's Army associates).
Simon arrives in Henning and receives a robust welcome, especially from Bertha, and the young couple move ahead with the plans for their wedding. Will builds an attractivebungalow for Bertha and Simon, assuming that they will settle in Henning, but without asking about their own plans.
On the first Sunday after the completion of the house, the wedding takes place in their church, then everyone adjourns to the front lawn of the new home for the reception, and a number of white neighbors join them. Among them are Sen. Andy Warner and his fancy new wife, fromWashington, DC, andNew York City, who arrive in aRolls-Royce opentouring car with a chauffeur.
Afterward, Mr. and Mrs. Simon Haleymotor away in aFordModel T toCornell University, inIthaca, New York, where Simon will start working on his master's degree in agriculture.
Later, Will and Cinthy move into the bungalow. (The house still stands; it is now known as theAlex Haley House and Museum and, as a state-owned historic site, is open to the public.)
In November 1921, Simon and Bertha return to Henning to visit Will and Cinthy, and they surprise them with their three-month-old son,Alexander Murray Palmer Haley, who Will promptly carries outside, lifts up andceremonially shows theMoon, in a tradition that was first portrayed in the firstRoots series by Omoro Kinte and baby Kunta Kinte inThe Gambia inWest Africa in 1750 (although, in the firstRoots, the tradition was a naming ritual, in which the father held the naked child to the stars, gave the child a name and said, "Behold the only thing greater than yourself.").
After eleven more years, late in the summer of 1932, during theGreat Depression, Simon, Bertha and their children stay temporarily in the bungalow with Will and Cynthia. At age 10, Alex has two younger brothers:George, named for Chicken George, and Julius. While working at Will's lumberyard, Simon unsuccessfully tries to show Will better methods forbookkeeping andinventory control, but Will disregards and uses him as a manuallaborer.
Shortly, however, Simon receives a special-delivery letter offering him a job as aprofessor of agriculture at the State Agricultural and Mechanical (A&M) Institute for Negroes, inNormal, Alabama. (The school later becomes renamed as theAlabama Agricultural and Mechanical (A&M) University; the campus and the former town of Normal, named for the normal school established there, now lie within the city limits ofHuntsville.) Simon promptly and joyfully accepts his appointment, and he and his family move to Normal in theirChevrolet four-door sedan.
Not only does Professor Haley teach his students in the classrooms andlaboratories, but he also approaches the local farmers and, with little success, tells them about techniques that would enable them to replenish the soil and to produce better crops, using simple techniques, such ascrop rotation. He meets Lyle Pettijohn, thecounty agricultural agent and a son of a sharecropper inGreene County, Tennessee, so the two of them easily find mutual interests and objectives. However, both Simon and Lyle meet resistance and incite violent reprisals by the white landowners.
Soon afterward, Will dies in Henning. While Bertha is out of town with the two younger sons for the funeral, Simon and Alex spend some special time together, during which Simon says to him, "There's one thing poor people have in common no matter who they are, they have no education. Education is the key; it's the way up, the way out. That's why you must do well in school Alex, not only for yourself but to help others as well." When Simon and his family return to Normal, they find that his antagonists have broken in, damaged their home and destroyed much of their property.
In May 1933, Bertha starts to show subtle signs of a threatening illness, and those symptoms continue during a summervacation in Henning with the aging Cynthia. One afternoon, Simon returns to his home and learns that Bertha has experienced a relapse in her illness, and that her condition has become serious. Minutes later, because of internal bleeding due to an undisclosed problem, Bertha dies in Simon's arms while Alex watches.
Simon drives his three sons to Henning, where the boys move into the bungalow with Cynthia and Elizabeth. On the front porch of the bungalow, Alex listens to Cynthia, Elizabeth and sometimes Cousin Georgia while they retell the stories about Kunta Kinte, Kizzy, Chicken George, Tom and the others.
Shortly afterward, Grandma Cinthy shows Alex a large cross-section disc cut from thetrunk of aredwood tree inCalifornia, and she explains it to him. Will has marked the annual rings of the trunk in such a way as to indicate the years when various relatives had been born, and when several major world events had occurred.
Seven years later, on May 1, 1939, at age 17, Alex arrives inElizabeth City, North Carolina, where Simon now lives with Zeona, his second wife, and where he now teaches agriculture at the Elizabeth City State Teachers College (a Black school, later renamed as theElizabeth City State University). Alex promptly sees that Zeona is pregnant. His academic work has become so lackluster and mediocre that he has dropped out of the Alcorn Agricultural and Mechanical (A&M) College (another Black school, later renamed as theAlcorn State University) nearLorman, Mississippi. Simon strongly encourages Alex to enlist in one of the branches of the armed forces, in the expectation that two or three years of military life will help raise Alex's maturity level.
In August 1939, Alex enlists in theUS Coast Guard inPortsmouth, Virginia, and he reports directly aboard acutter,USCGCMendota (WHEC-69), without receiving the benefit of anyboot camp or other basic training. However, Percival "Scotty" Scott, a gruff but kindly Steward's Mate First-Class, the leadingPetty Officer in thewardroom area among theMess Attendants and Steward's Mates, takes Alex in tow. Alex begins as a Mess Attendant, starting on the career path toward his becoming a Steward's Mate, one of the few ratings available to Blackenlisted men in either theNavy or the Coast Guard during the era ofWorld War II. (The real USCGCMendota (WHEC-69) served 1945-1973.)
While attending a church-sponsored dance for servicemen and local ladies, Alex meets Nan Branch, a naïve, single young woman, and they continue to meet at the church dances. On the eighth such meeting, Alex proposes marriage to Nan, and she accepts. They soon marry, then they visit Simon, Zeona and their new baby, in Elizabeth City. Simon expresses disapproval because Alex has departed from his plan for him, and Zeona urges Simon to stop interfering.
Meanwhile, on December 7, 1941, theEmpire of Japanattacks the USA atPearl Harbor in theTerritory of Hawaii, thus drawing the United States into the war. By this time, Scotty has advanced to the rate ofChief Petty Officer (Chief Steward's Mate).
By July 1942, Alex and Chief Scott are somewhere in the South Pacific Ocean aboardUSSMurzim (AK-95), anammunition ship, one of several Naval vessels crewed by the Coast Guard during World War II. Scotty asks Alex why he receives so many letters, and he answers that, in effect, if he wishes to receive letters, then he must write letters – to relatives back home. Then, at Scotty's request, Alex writes alove letter for Scotty to a girlfriend inAuckland, New Zealand, where the ship will make a port visit about two months later. The letter works so well that Scotty sets up Alex to write love letters for other shipmates for one dollar apiece. Thus, Alex enters the writing business. (The real USSMurzim (AK-95) served 1943-1946.)
While at sea, Alex receives the news that Nan has given birth to a girl, and that she has given her mother's name, Lydia, to their baby. Alex expresses his pleasure about his new fatherhood, yet he says that he had wanted to give the girl the name of Cynthia, his maternal grandmother.
World War II ends, and both Simon and Alex start thinking about their respective plans for Alex. Simon makes a train journey to California, where he meets Alex at the Coast Guard Station onYerba Buena Island, in theSan Francisco Bay. Alex has advanced to the rate of Petty Officer First-Class (Steward's Mate First-Class). Simon and Alex articulate a sharp disagreement about the differences between their plans for Alex; Simon wants him to return toacademia, but Alex intends to stay in the Coast Guard at least until he decides or discovers what else he should do. Simon expresses adream that Alex might even become a president of a university.
Alex returns to theEast Coast and to Nan and Lydia, and Nan again becomes pregnant. Alex requests and gets an assignment in New York City so that he can live and work closer to the editors there because of his intense interest in writing and his goal to become a published author.
In November 1946, Alex and his family head northward to his nextduty station, and they encounter not onlyracial discrimination but alsofrustration anddisappointment while seeking a room in amotel or "auto court". Alex starts working, writingpress releases in thepublic-relations office of the Coast Guard inManhattan. While off-duty, he starts writing proposedarticles and submitting them to magazines, but he receives only rejection slips.
Cdr. Robert Munroe, the officer in charge of the public-relations office, aSoutherner with 30 years of experience in journalism, dismisses Alex's early writings as amateurish but takes an interest in Alex, his work and his plans, and he offers him constructive advice and guidance. Alex works hard on his writing, both on-duty and off-duty. He spends so much time on his own writing that Nan begins to complain, saying that he neglects her and their two children, Lydia and Billy, by giving them so little time and attention.
While onannual leave from the Coast Guard, Alex and his family visit Cynthia, Elizabeth and Cousin Georgia in the bungalow in Henning, and, partly with the encouragement of Grandma Cinthy, he starts to feel a need or wish to learn more about theroots of his family. During that visit, Cinthy tells Alex that the old slice from the redwood tree has become hauled away to a dump because insects had begun reducing it to sawdust.
Alex continues to feel much frustration and disappointment about his lack of success in civilian commercial writing. He seeks and, in 1949, receives a change of his rating from Steward's Mate First-Class to Journalist First-Class, and he remains as a journalist (no longer in the wardroom area). Later, he advances to the rate of Chief Petty Officer (Chief Journalist; the first Chief Journalist in the Coast Guard), and he continues as a Chief Journalist for the remainder of his 20-year military career.
On Christmas Eve 1950, Mel Klein, an independent writer on an assignment from a magazine editor, consults Alex to get some statistics to go into a new article about the Coast Guard, and Alex asks Mel for advice. Mel tells him aboutCoronet, a small-format magazine, which, according to Mel, can't get enough short (600-word)human-interest stories.
In response to Mel's advice, Alex, that same night, dives into his work after hours in the office and submerges himself in his writing and rewriting – to the extent that he loses sight of his special duties to his family that special night – to take home the gifts and thetree, for which Nan and the kids have prepared a place in their apartment, and for which they have awaited and anticipated. On Christmas Day, Alex finally arrives at their apartment – barely in time to see Nan and their children as they walk out and step into ataxicab – because Nan has decided to leave Alex and to move in with her mother in her home. Nan and Alex later divorce.
In October 1960, Simon, Alex, George and others gather in Henning for the funeral of Aunt Lizzie. George is anattorney and astate senator (and the second Black graduate of theSchool of Law at theUniversity of Arkansas), Julius is an architect, and Alex is, as he describes himself, a professional writer with a respectable living. Simon implies that he does not feel as pleased with the accomplishments of Alex as he does with those of his two younger brothers.
In 1960, Alex meetsMalcolm X, and later interviews him and a number of other notable people, includingGeorge Lincoln Rockwell, while writing forPlayboy and theReader's Digest. Alex also co-authorsThe Autobiography of Malcolm X, and he finishes it several weeks before the assassination of the subject person.
While Alex makes another visit in Henning, Cousin Georgia encourages him and his curiosity about his family heritage. Alex continues his research – to theNational Archives, a private source in North Carolina, a historical society inAnnapolis, the headquarters of the United Nations, and eventually to the village ofJufureh inThe Gambia in West Africa. Before Alex leaves for West Africa, Simon reconciles with his son, saying that he is proud of Alex's work onThe Autobiography of Malcolm X.
In Jufureh, Alex listens to a nativegriot who tells about a youngMandinka man,Kunta Kinte, who went out to fetch wood to make a drum and was never again seen. Thus, Alex concludes that he has truly discovered his ancestor and his history in Africa.
As with the original, the new series again concludes with a postscript by Alex himself, who encourages viewers to explore their own genealogy, in part by interviewing their older relatives, consulting written records and holding family reunions.
For the first part of the story, seeRoots.
Number in parentheses indicates how many episodes in which the actor/character appears.
Producers Stan Margulies andDavid L. Wolper were initially reluctant to make a sequel to the 1977 miniseries but later agreed to do it.[1] WriterErnest Kinoy then wrote an outline forRoots: The Next Generations, based on the final seven chapters of Alex Haley's bookRoots: The Saga of an American Family and about 1,000 pages worth of family recollections thatAlex Haley dictated into a tape recorder.[1]
While Haley contributed as a consultant during the production, many of the family and other events depicted were factually inaccurate or wholly fictionalized. Some glaring examples include:
1. Jim Warner and Carrie Barden were in reality James Turner and Carrie White. James was not the son of a prominent Colonel who lived in Henning and did not have a brother who eventually became a Tennessee senator. The miniseries opens in 1883. Jim and Carrie are introduced as strangers and later get married by running off to Memphis. In reality, Jim and Carrie were married inLauderdale County, Tennessee, on April 21, 1876, seven years prior to the year the miniseries begins. It is also unlikely that Jim was white since, in 1876, interracial marriages were illegal. Lauderdale County officials would have refused to issue a marriage license to any interracial couple seeking to marry. Jim was likely a mulatto. In fact, according to the 1891 Tennessee voter registration rolls, Jim was identified as Black. The best evidence showing that Jim was not white is an affidavit found in his 1942 probate file in Lauderdale County signed by his widow, Carrie. In paragraph 2 of the affidavit, Carrie referred to Jim (J.B. Turner) as "colored".
2. W.E. Palmer was Alex Haley's grandfather as portrayed by Stan Shaw. He married Cynthia Murray (Harvey in the miniseries). Part V opens in late summer 1932 with interaction between Wil Palmer and his grandson, Alex. Wil shows Alex a slice of a tree, explaining that time is short for people compared to the life of a tree. Alex's parents are living in Henning, waiting for Simon to be hired by a college. Eventually, Simon is hired by an Alabama College and the Haleys relocate there. After the move, Bertha learns that her father died in Henning. In reality, both Wil Palmer and Bertha Haley were dead by "late summer" 1932. Wil died on February 5, 1926, and Bertha died in Normal, Alabama, on February 16, 1932. The scene regarding the tree slice could not have happened as portrayed, since Alex was less than five years old when his grandfather died.
3. Part VII opens in October 1960 with the funeral of Aunt Lizzie Harvey. In reality, Elizabeth Murray died in 1952, preceded by her sister Cynthia in 1949.
Also in Part VII, Haley's interview of George Lincoln Rockwell is presented as having taken place prior to the assassination of Malcolm X when, in fact, the interview occurred in April 1966, more than a year after Malcolm X's death.
The producers aimed for casting high-quality actors and basically had no trouble signing the people they wanted because of the success of the first miniseries.[1] WhileGeorg Stanford Brown reprises his role as Tom Harvey,James Earl Jones was selected partially due to his physical resemblance to Haley. Wanting to also participate in the miniseries,Marlon Brando called "out of the blue" and asked for a small yet memorable role; he was cast asGeorge Lincoln Rockwell[1] and won anEmmy Award for his performance.
Roots: The Next Generations originally aired onABC as 7 two-hour episodes on consecutive nights from February 18 to February 24, 1979.
| Episode | Approximate time period | Featured Kinte descendants | |||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Chicken George | Tom Harvey | Cynthia Harvey Palmer | Bertha Palmer Haley | Alex Haley | |||||
| Part I | 1882 – 1883 | Yes | Yes | Yes | |||||
| Part II | 1896 – 1897 | Yes | Yes | Yes | |||||
| Part III | 1914 – 1918 | Yes | Yes | ||||||
| Part IV | 1918 – 1921 | Yes | Yes | Yes | |||||
| Part V | 1932 – 1933 | Yes | Yes | Yes | |||||
| Part VI | 1939 – 1950 | Yes | Yes | ||||||
| Part VII | 1960 – 1967 | Yes | |||||||
| No. | Title | Directed by | Written by | Original runtime | Original release date |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | "Part I" | John Erman | Teleplay by :Ernest Kinoy | 2 h | February 18, 1979 (1979-02-18) |
| 2 | "Part II" | Charles S. Dubin | Teleplay by :Ernest Kinoy | 2 h | February 19, 1979 (1979-02-19) |
| 3 | "Part III" | John Erman | Teleplay by :Ernest Kinoy | 2 h | February 20, 1979 (1979-02-20) |
| 4 | "Part IV" | Charles S. Dubin | Teleplay by : Sydney A. Glass andErnest Kinoy | 2 h | February 21, 1979 (1979-02-21) |
| 5 | "Part V" | Georg Stanford Brown | Teleplay by :Thad Mumford and Daniel Wilcox | 2 h | February 22, 1979 (1979-02-22) |
| 6 | "Part VI" | Lloyd Richards | Teleplay by :John McGreevey | 2 h | February 23, 1979 (1979-02-23) |
| 7 | "Part VII" | John Erman | Teleplay by :Ernest Kinoy | 2 h | February 24, 1979 (1979-02-24) |
The miniseries was watched by an estimated 110 million[3][4][5][6][7] viewers and averaged a 30.1 rating[5] and 45% share[5] of the audience.
| Episode | Weekly Ratings Ranking[6][a] | Number of Households | Number of Viewers | Rating | Share | Date | Network |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Part I | #8 | N/A | 65 million[8] | 27.8%[8] | 41%[8] | February 18, 1979 | ABC |
| Part II | #9 | 22 million[4] | 65 million[9] | 29.5%[4] | N/A | February 19, 1979 | ABC |
| Part III | #4 | 24.4 million[4] | 70 million[9] | 32.7%[4] | 50%[9] | February 20, 1979 | ABC |
| Part IV | #6 | 23.7 million[4] | N/A | 31.8%[4] | N/A | February 21, 1979 | ABC |
| Part V | #7 | 23.6 million[4] | N/A | 31.7%[4] | N/A | February 22, 1979 | ABC |
| Part VI | #10 | 21.5 million[4] | N/A | 28.9%[4] | N/A | February 23, 1979 | ABC |
| Part VII | #11 | N/A | N/A | 28.6%[4] | N/A | February 24, 1979 | ABC |
^[a]Part I aired a week prior to the rest of the series in the ratings.
In July and September 2007, theTV One network reran the series hosted by several of the original cast including Lynne Moody, Dorian Harewood, Stan Shaw, Kristoff St. John, and Irene Cara.
The miniseries was released on DVD byWarner Bros. on October 9, 2007.
Alex Haley'sRoots | |
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