OPINION: Fifty years after ‘Roots’ and the awakening of America

By Ivory Phillips

JA Contributing Editor

This week in 1977 the film version of “Roots” by Alex Haley reached the public. The written version had been published a year earlier in 1976, making this its 50th anniversary. We focus on “Roots” because it marked a major re-awakening of America.

“Roots” enabled millions to see African enslavement and the Transatlantic Slave Trade in all the violent and cruel details. It literally, “snatched the covers off” white Europeans and Americans. It awakened America, white, Black, and otherwise, to the comprehensive extent and nature of slavery not so noted since the publication of “Uncle Tom’s Cabin.” Because of the visual and dramatic presentation of the phenomenon, it penetrated and tore at the psyche, the intellect, and the emotion in a manner never done before. It was stamped in the minds of the “war babies” and their offspring.

 In the wake of the film, there were not only racial skirmishes on some school campuses. Much more attention was paid to organized Black studies programs and Black family reunions. There were more discussions on the lasting impact of slavery and the need for reparations.

 The awakening following “Roots” reminds those who are “war babies” of the awakening that occurred following the lynching of one of their own, Emmett Till, 21 years earlier. The Till lynching had caused such an awakening, not because it was so rare, more than 3,000 had been recorded over the previous 70 years. Till’s murder had such an impact because the open casket funeral enabled people to “see” the results of the brutality; the “Look” magazine account documented the detailed episode; and no one was ever punished.

The Emmett Till murder was simply the re-emphasis of what had happened with the Scottsboro Boys, Willie McGee, and the thousands of other Black victims that caused W.E.B. Du Bois and other activists to deliver a petition before the United Nations charging America with genocide.

The awakening following “Roots” also reminds these men and women reaching maturity in the 1960s of the awakening following the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King. The awakening at that time led to Black uprisings in dozens of major metropolitan areas around the country. Many reasoned that if the “Black apostle of non-violence” could be so hated and killed, who among Black people was really safe? They were reminded all over again they are the descendants of enslaved Africans – their lives could easily be taken via a lynching for trying to protect their constitutional rights or just for organizing as a member of a rejected group.

Fifty years after “Roots,” Americans are still being re-awakened, as many need to be, to what it means to be Black in America and to the role of white America in Black oppression. While people should not wait for earth-shaking events to become awake and active, the Trump administration worsens the condition through its “Make America Great Again” initiatives, thereby serving as an awakening event. 

Therefore, as was the case after Emmett Till’s lynching, the assassination of MLK and the release of “Roots,” citizens must be aroused and willingly take to the courts, the polls, and the streets in order to advance the condition of Black people to that of being treated as fully human and fully American in every sense of the word.