![]() ![]() King noted, “At least 130 million Americans, more than half the country, tuned in at least one episode. The original eight-night run of the Roots television show attracted a staggering audience. Indeed, the book and the subsequent television miniseries marked a watershed for the nation. “Few works in the post- World War II era can match the searing impact Roots had on a racially troubled land, ” assessed Mark Goodman in People. Such critics as Essence magazine correspondent Betty Winston Baye hailed the author as “a national treasure importance to the world. ![]() It also did more to foster interest in black history and genealogy than any novel before or since. An international bestseller published in more than 30 languages with six million copies sold, Roots made its author a millionaire celebrity. Haley ’s account of his ancestor Kunta Kinte, who was captured by slave traders in 1767 and brought to America against his will, won a special Pulitzer Prize and a citation from the National Book Award committee. The late Alex Haley gave America a bicentennial gift that will not soon be forgotten -his fact-based book Roots: The Saga of an American Family. ![]()
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