Over the week of January 23 to 30, 1977, 80 million people in the United States had a collective, secular-religious transformation with the introduction of a brand new mass media art form known as the miniseries.
Later that same year, the BBC also reached a record audience.
Horrific, visceral, realities (rape, bondage, whipping, oppression) were broadcast directly into homes and a new history solidified in the collective imagination.
Victim sanctity became the new, unquestionable collective history for American Blacks. Between sequels, remakes, spin-offs, and translations, the collective humiliation of one race and the collective guilt of another were cemented in the narrative.
Following the translation into Swahili, French, Italian and German, Roots swept across Africa. By 1979, it had been translated into Chinese and has been sold there, royalty-free, ever since.
That same year, Alex Haley returned to speak at Macalester College, in St. Paul, MN, where he’d been previously paid as an invited guest of their World Press Institute to write, “Roots.” Doors immediately opened, and this book went from manuscript to bestseller to global religious experience in 18 short months.
Haley talks about the unexpected viral success of Roots, his fear of encountering fatherless young Black men, and his wish that every nationality, religion, and ethnic group would receive the same treatment.
While making Roots, people in the Television industry told Haley that only Black people would be interested and that his content could not hold an audience for two hours. To get the failure out of the way, they decided to air it all at once. 80-million people were emotionally jarred that week and over a billion people have been similarly moved since.
Even if you’ve never seen it, you’re living in the universe Alex Haley created.
People can argue about the historical accuracy of Haley’s research, his methodology, or his alleged plagiarism, but it won’t make a difference to the impact he and Macalester College’s World Press Institute have had.
Broadcast television, albums, home video, DVD, cable, and other forms of this media have been viewed many billions of times and have left an indelible mark on our collective psyche.
The History Channel remake of Roots and George Floyd events occurred Memorial Day Weekend 2016 and 2020, which is precisely one election cycle apart.
A curious coincidence.
