ROOTS

NIGHT ONE of ROOTS begins in 1750 in the port city of Juffure, in the river region of The Gambia in West Africa, where Omoro Kinte and his wife, Binta, have their first child, a son named Kunta. As a member of the highly esteemed Kinte family, Kunta is trained in Mandinka customs and traditions. He is a dedicated student who dreams of traveling to the university in Timbuktu to become a scholar. Kunta passes his warrior training, an important Mandinka rite of passage, but soon after he is betrayed by a rival family and brutally and suddenly his life is forever altered.

Airing four consecutive nights on HISTORY beginning on Memorial Day, “ROOTS” is a historical portrait of American slavery recounting the journey of one family’s will to survive, endure and ultimately carry on their legacy despite enormous hardship and inhumanity.  The story of Kunta Kinte and the women and men who came after him echoes through the history of millions of Americans of African descent, and reveals powerful truths about the universal resilience of the human spirit.

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