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Summary Of Alex Haley's Roots

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Roots is a television miniseries that first aired in 1977. It was based on the very popular book written and released by Alex Haley in 1976. It’s the story about his family tree going all the way down to his African roots. The story begins with a young boy named Kunta Kinte who was born in Gambia in west Africa. As a teenager Kunta gets captured and thus begins his long journey into the depth of slavery in the US for many generations of Haley’s family. This miniseries has been one of the most popular and watched shows of all time. The visual representation of slavery shown is both eye-opening and disturbing. The three most important lessons I’ve learned about slavery from Roots are, slaves had really tough lives, white people used to refer …show more content…

This is still used as a racist term for black people from some. Take the Ku Klux Klan for an example, they are people who claim to hate every race except for white. In Roots, there's a scene of the KKK being formed by Evan Brent. Him and a bunch of other people go to Kunta’s descendants plantation and terrorized his grandchildren. The “n” word should stop being used because it is an ugly, mean and hurtful word towards African Americans. Lastly, African Americans were considered as savages to the whites. The way that the Africans lived before they were slaves was very different than how the whites would act. When the whites would see how the African Americans acted they considered them as savages because of different they did things. Like their teachings and beliefs were very different from the whites. In conclusion, slavery was one of the worst things to ever happen in America. It is a topic that we choose not to talk about because what we put African Americans through was so terrible. I feel that it is good to know about it because we do not want something like this to ever happen again. Alex Haley’s story is empowering and teaches us what slavery was really like. It is a huge part of American history and how America was formed, but it should never happen

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