Roots: The Saga of an American Family, a novel by Alex Haley (1921 – 1992) is an extraordinary story of the author’s ancestry beginning in Africa and continuing in the United States.

In West Africa’s The Gambia, a baby boy named Kunta Kinte was born in the spring of 1750 in the village of Juffure. He grew up in the traditional manner, learning how to be a man, following Mankinka tribal traditions.

At the age of 16, Kunta wandered a little farther than usual, looking for wood to make a drum. While inspecting a tree trunk for his project, he was suddenly overcome, captured, forced aboard a ship among 140 other men and women captives, and bound by chains to other men for an excruciating, seemingly endless voyage of suffering, pain and sickness. Arriving in Maryland, he was sold for $850 and taken by wagon to a plantation. He didn’t know the language, didn’t understand what was expected of him, and resisted every effort to conform to his new environment. Kunta was actually a novelty, coming directly from Africa. At the time, most slaves were born in the United States. Kunta, named Toby by his white master, ran away several times. The last time he ran away and was caught, the front half of his foot was chopped off. Finally, he was taken to a plantation where he was treated for his injury, and where he would stay for many years under comparatively humane treatment.

Eventually, Kunta became a wagon driver for his master, a doctor, as he made his rounds. By talking to drivers and slaves from other plantations, Kunta had opportunities to learn not only of local happenings but also United States and even world news. Although he resented being owned by someone and having no rights at all, Kunta’s life was far better than many slaves. He eventually married and had one daughter, Kizzy. Kunta felt it important that she knew her heritage, so he often told her of Africa, naming African places and people, a tradition that was passed down to following generations.

And so it went throughout the family’s subsequent descendants, toiling under the white man’s whims, unable to own their own land, living in shacks. Although teaching a slave to read and write was against the law, there were readers, even those who could write, within the extended family. They learned of their family lineage beginning with Kunta from The Gambia and following generations, and finally to Alex Haley in Tennessee who traced his family’s history. Roots, a Pulitzer Prize winner, is an amazing chronicle of a family’s struggle for human rights. The novel, together with the television mini-series, helped open the minds of Americans to a new way of thinking of America’s past to today’s more enlightened viewpoints.

When I first read Roots soon after it was published in 1976, I didn’t dream that one day I’d walk the dusty paths of Kunta Kinte’s homeland. My husband and I served for two years with the Peace Corps in The Gambia. During the three-month in-country language and cross-cultural training, we learned that one of our language teachers was part of the Alex Haley team who helped him find his roots. While reading the African portion of the book, I could almost hear the drums as they “spoke” the local news. Living in The Gambia was one of the highlights of my life. Reading Roots this second time made it come alive again for me.