And we all know who Alex Haley was, because he's the one who wrote Roots in the first place. Bertha goes on to marry Simon Haley (Dorian Harewood), and they have a son, Alex, who grows up to be played by James Earl Jones. As the years pass, Tom's daughter Cynthia (Bever-Leigh Banfield) marries Will Palmer (Stan Shaw), and they have a daughter, Bertha (Irene Cara). A successful blacksmith, Tom is also something of a leader within the black community of Henning, fighting for equality of his people. Picking up a dozen years after the first series ended, Next Generations starts off in Tennessee, where Tom Harvey (Georg Sanford Brown), the great grandson of Kunta Kinte, has relocated his family in the years following the Civil War. Roots: The Next Generations first aired in February of 1979, two years and one month after the original mini series. But when it did, Warner Brothers-the company that produced Roots-knew it would have to have a follow-up. With that in mind, ABC was not expecting to have a hit. Sure, there was a ton of hype in the weeks leading up to its premiere in 1977, but the two things to keep in mind are that nothing like it had ever been seen before, and that America-since its very inception-has always underestimated black people in every way imaginable. What is interesting about the original Roots is that ABC, the network that originally aired it, was convinced it was going to be a bomb. Because of the amazing success of Roots, which only tracked four generation of Haley's family, ending just after the Civil War, it really was no big surprise that television-viewing America would want to see more of this epic saga. Based on the award-winning book by Alex Haley, Roots recounted the history of his family, starting with Kunta Kinte, his great-great-great grandfather, who was abducted from Africa and sold into slavery in Virginia during the late 1700s. Roots was a cultural phenomenon-the most watched event in television history that literally transformed the way America thought about race. At the risk of sounding hyperbolic, the television mini series Roots changed my life.

Alex haley roots the next generation