![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() For a decade, Haley said, he had been making false and true starts on bits and pieces of an oral history that his grandmother had related to him back home in Tennessee, a history that worked its way across fields and rivers to the ocean, and thence to a mighty river. Its author, Reader’s Digest senior editor Alex Haley, professed to be a little surprised at his book’s quick success, but there was nothing quick about its making. Published in August 1976, nicely timed for a bicentennial year, Roots had already touched off a genealogy craze. For a week in late January, across the country, Roots parties were the rage, while across all media a national conversation began on the always uncomfortable question of slavery and its contribution to America’s course and character.Īt the same time, Roots, the book, continued to fly off the shelves, a bestseller with more substance than most. If you are of a certain age and were anywhere near the United States in early 1977, you probably remember the bona fide social phenomenon that was the first airing of the miniseries Roots. ![]()
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