Kunta Kinte is the central character of the
novelA novel is a book of long narrative in literary prose. The genre has historical roots both in the fields of the medieval and early modern romance and in the tradition of the novella. The latter supplied the present generic term in the late 18th century....
Roots: The Saga of an American FamilyRoots: The Saga of an American Family is a novel written by Alex Haley and first published in 1976. It tells the story of Kunta Kinte, an 18th-century African, captured as an adolescent and sold into slavery in the United States, and follows his life and the lives of his descendants in the U.S....
by
AmericanThe United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
author
Alex HaleyAlexander Murray Palmer Haley was an African-American writer. He is best known as the author of Roots: The Saga of an American Family and the coauthor of The Autobiography of Malcolm X.-Early life:...
, and of the television miniseries
RootsRoots is a 1977 American television miniseries based on Alex Haley's fictional novel Roots: The Saga of an American Family. Roots received 36 Emmy Award nominations, winning nine. It also won a Golden Globe and a Peabody Award. It received unprecedented Nielsen ratings with the finale still...
, based on the book. Haley described his book as
faction - a mixture of fact and fiction. After Haley's book became nationally famous, American author
Harold CourlanderHarold Courlander was an American novelist, folklorist, and anthropologist, an expert in the study of Haitian life. The author of 35 books and plays and numerous scholarly articles, Courlander specialized in the study of African, Caribbean, Afro-American , and American Indian cultures...
noted that the section describing Kinte's life was apparently taken from Courlander's book
The African. Haley at first dismissed the charge, but later issued a public statement affirming that Courlander's book had been the source, and Haley attributed the error to a mistake of one of his assistant researchers.
Kunta Kinte is the central character of the
novelA novel is a book of long narrative in literary prose. The genre has historical roots both in the fields of the medieval and early modern romance and in the tradition of the novella. The latter supplied the present generic term in the late 18th century....
Roots: The Saga of an American FamilyRoots: The Saga of an American Family is a novel written by Alex Haley and first published in 1976. It tells the story of Kunta Kinte, an 18th-century African, captured as an adolescent and sold into slavery in the United States, and follows his life and the lives of his descendants in the U.S....
by
AmericanThe United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
author
Alex HaleyAlexander Murray Palmer Haley was an African-American writer. He is best known as the author of Roots: The Saga of an American Family and the coauthor of The Autobiography of Malcolm X.-Early life:...
, and of the television miniseries
RootsRoots is a 1977 American television miniseries based on Alex Haley's fictional novel Roots: The Saga of an American Family. Roots received 36 Emmy Award nominations, winning nine. It also won a Golden Globe and a Peabody Award. It received unprecedented Nielsen ratings with the finale still...
, based on the book. Haley described his book as
faction - a mixture of fact and fiction. After Haley's book became nationally famous, American author
Harold CourlanderHarold Courlander was an American novelist, folklorist, and anthropologist, an expert in the study of Haitian life. The author of 35 books and plays and numerous scholarly articles, Courlander specialized in the study of African, Caribbean, Afro-American , and American Indian cultures...
noted that the section describing Kinte's life was apparently taken from Courlander's book
The African. Haley at first dismissed the charge, but later issued a public statement affirming that Courlander's book had been the source, and Haley attributed the error to a mistake of one of his assistant researchers.
Africa
Haley's novel begins with Kunta's birth in the village of
JuffureJufureh, Juffureh or Juffure is a town in The Gambia, located 30 kilometers inland on the north bank of the River Gambia in the North Bank Division near James Island. The town is home to a museum and Fort Jillifree....
in
The GambiaThe Republic of The Gambia, commonly referred to as The Gambia, or Gambia , is a country in West Africa. Gambia is the smallest country on mainland Africa, surrounded by Senegal except for a short coastline on the Atlantic Ocean in the west....
,
West AfricaWest Africa or Western Africa is the westernmost region of the African continent. Geopolitically, the UN definition of Western Africa includes the following 16 countries and an area of approximately 5 million square km:-Flags of West Africa:...
in 1750. Kunta is the first of four sons of the
MandinkaThe Mandinka, Malinke are one of the largest ethnic groups in West Africa with an estimated population of eleven million ....
tribesman Omoro and his wife Binta Kebba. Haley describes Kunta's strict Muslim upbringing, the rigors of the manhood training he undergoes, and the proud origins of the Kinte name.
One day in 1767, when young Kunta Kinte leaves his village to search for wood to make a drum, four men surround him and take him captive. Kunta awakens to find himself blindfolded, gagged, bound and prisoner of the white men. Haley describes how they humiliate him by stripping him naked, probing him in every orifice, and branding him with a hot iron. He and others are put on a slave ship for the
three-month voyageThe Middle Passage was the stage of the triangular trade in which millions of people from Africa were shipped to the New World, as part of the Atlantic slave trade...
to America.
America
Kunta survives the trip to
MarylandMaryland is a U.S. state located in the Mid Atlantic region of the United States, bordering Virginia, West Virginia, and the District of Columbia to its south and west; Pennsylvania to its north; and Delaware to its east...
and is sold to a Virginia
plantationA plantation is a long artificially established forest, farm or estate, where crops are grown for sale, often in distant markets rather than for local on-site consumption...
owner, Master Waller-, who renames him "Toby". He rejects the name imposed by his owners, and refuses to speak to others.
After being apprehended during the last of his four escape attempts, the slave catchers give him a choice: he can be castrated or have his right foot cut off. He chooses to have his foot cut off, and the slave catchers cut off the front half of his right foot. As the years pass, Kunta resigns himself to his fate, and also becomes more open and sociable with his fellow slaves, while never forgetting who he was or where he came from.
Family
He eventually marries another slave named Belle Waller and has a daughter named Kizzy (Keisa, in
Mandinka/MandingoThe Mandinka language is a Mandé language spoken by millions of Mandinka people in Mali, Senegal, The Gambia, Guinea, Côte d'Ivoire, Burkina Faso, Sierra Leone, Liberia, and Guinea-Bissau and Chad; it is the main language of The Gambia. It belongs to the Manding branch of Mandé, and is thus fairly...
), which in Kunta's native tongue means "to stay put". When Kizzy is in her late teens, she is sold away to
North CarolinaNorth Carolina is a state located in the southeastern United States. The state borders South Carolina and Georgia to the south, Tennessee to the west and Virginia to the north. North Carolina contains 100 counties. Its capital is Raleigh, and its largest city is Charlotte...
when her master discovers that she had written a fake traveling pass for a young slave boy with whom she was in love (she had been taught to read and write secretly by Missy Anne, niece to the plantation owner). Her new owner immediately
rapeRape is a type of sexual assault usually involving sexual intercourse, which is initiated by one or more persons against another person without that person's consent. The act may be carried out by physical force, coercion, abuse of authority or with a person who is incapable of valid consent. The...
s her and fathers her only child, George (who spends his life with the tag "Chicken George", because of his assigned duties of tending to his master's cockfighting brood).
In the novel, Kizzy never learns her parents' fate. She spends the remainder of her life as a field hand on the Lea plantation in North Carolina. In the miniseries, she is taken back to visit the Waller plantation later in life. She discovers that her mother was sold off to another plantation and that her father died of a broken heart four years later, in 1810. She finds his grave, where she crosses out his slave name from the tombstone and writes his real name above it.
The rest of the book tells the story of the generations between Kizzy and Alex Haley, describing their suffering, losses and eventual triumphs in America. Alex Haley was the seventh generation of Kunta Kinte and wrote the things he knew in a book called
RootsRoots: The Saga of an American Family is a novel written by Alex Haley and first published in 1976. It tells the story of Kunta Kinte, an 18th-century African, captured as an adolescent and sold into slavery in the United States, and follows his life and the lives of his descendants in the U.S....
.
Influence
There is an annual
Kunta Kinte Heritage Festival held in Maryland. Kunta Kinte also inspired a
reggaeReggae is a music genre first developed in Jamaica in the late 1960s. While sometimes used in a broader sense to refer to most types of Jamaican music, the term reggae more properly denotes a particular music style that originated following on the development of ska and rocksteady.Reggae is based...
rhythm of the same name, performed by artists including
The RevolutionariesThe Revolutionaries is a Jamaican reggae band.-Career:Set up in 1975 as the house band of the Channel One Studios owned by Joseph Hoo Kim, The Revolutionaries with Sly Dunbar on drums and Robbie Shakespeare on bass, created the new "rockers" style that would change the whole Jamaican sound The...
, and
Mad ProfessorMad Professor is a dub music producer and engineer known for his original productions and remix work. He is considered one of the leading producers of dub music’s second generation and was instrumental in transitioning dub into the digital age. He is a prolific producer, contributing to or...
, and an album,
Kunta Kinte Roots by
Ranking DreadRanking Dread was a Jamaican reggae deejay who grew up in the Kingston ghettos of Rema and Tivoli. He became famous for his work with the Ray Symbolic sound system in the 1970s...
. There is also a band of the same name.
He is mentioned in the
Kanye WestKanye Omari West is an American rapper, singer, and record producer. West first rose to fame as a producer for Roc-A-Fella Records, where he eventually achieved recognition for his work on Jay-Z's album The Blueprint, as well as hit singles for musical artists including Alicia Keys, Ludacris, and...
song "Never Let Me Down" from the
College Dropout album. He is also mentioned in the songs "Whip It" by
Lil WayneDwayne Michael Carter, Jr. , better known by his stage name Lil Wayne, is an American rapper. At the age of nine, Lil Wayne joined Cash Money Records as the youngest member of the label, and half of the duo, The B.G.'z, with B.G.. In 1997, Lil Wayne joined the group Hot Boys, which also included...
, "Work It" by
Missy ElliottMelissa Arnette "Missy" Elliott , is an American rapper, singer-songwriter, record producer, and actressA five-time Grammy Award winner, Elliott, with record sales of over seven million in the United States, is the only female rapper to have five albums certified platinum by the RIAA, including one...
,
A Tribe Called QuestA Tribe Called Quest is an American hip hop group, formed in 1985, and is composed of rapper/producer Q-Tip , rapper Phife Dawg , and DJ/producer Ali Shaheed Muhammad. A fourth member, rapper Jarobi White, left the group after their first album but rejoined in 2006...
's "8 Million Stories",
Roots ManuvaRodney Hylton Smith , better known by his stage name Roots Manuva, is a British rapper from Stockwell, South London. He is currently signed to Big Dada.-Biography:...
's "Snake Bite",
Ghostface KillahDennis Coles , better known by his stage name Ghostface Killah, is an American rapper and prominent member of the Wu-Tang Clan. After the group achieved breakthrough success in the aftermath of Enter the Wu-Tang , the members went on to pursue solo careers to varying levels of success...
's "Black Jesus",
AkirAkir is an African-American hip hop artist, producer and songwriter known for his complex lyrics and social-political content. His name is an acronym for Always Keep It Real. He is also the co-founder of One Enterprises.- Biography :...
's "Kunta Kinte",
Busta RhymesTrevor Tahiem Smith, Jr., better known by his stage name Busta Rhymes ,Smith is an American rapper, producer and actor. Chuck D of Public Enemy gave him the alias Busta Rhymes after NFL wide receiver George "Buster" Rhymes...
's "Rhymes Galore",
Ice CubeO'Shea Jackson , better known by his stage name Ice Cube, is an American rapper and actor. He began his career as a member of the hip-hop group C.I.A. and later joined the rap group N.W.A. After leaving N.W.A in December 1989, he built a successful solo career in music, and also as a writer,...
's "No Vaseline", Keymark's Pookey Marsum,
The CoupThe Coup is a political hip hop group based in Oakland, California. It formed as a three-member group in 1992 with emcees Raymond "Boots" Riley and E-Roc along with DJ Pam the Funkstress. E-Roc left on amicable terms after the group's second album but appears on the track "Breathing Apparatus" on...
's "My Favourite Mutiny" and
Roll DeepRoll Deep are an Urban Music Awards-winning London-based grime music collective. They were founded in 2002, by a group of MCs including Wiley. Roll Deep were also closely associated with Boy Better Know with members in both. Their debut album, In at the Deep End, was released in June 2005...
's "Roll Deep Rally" which is featured on the soundtrack for the 2010 film
Shank. Flow Dan can be heard saying "I'm on the run like Kunta..." on
RZARobert Fitzgerald Diggs, better known by his stage name RZA , is an American Grammy-winning music producer, multi-instrumentalist, author, emcee, and occasional actor, director, and screenwriter. A prominent figure in Hip Hop, RZA is the de facto leader of the Wu-Tang Clan. He has produced almost...
's "Must Be Bobby". He also influences the Bay Area rapper Keak da Sneak where Keak was nicknamed Kunta Kinte.
An early scene in the film
Boyz n the HoodBoyz n the Hood is a 1991 American hood film written and directed by John Singleton. Starring Cuba Gooding, Jr., Ice Cube, Laurence Fishburne, Morris Chestnut, Nia Long, Angela Bassett and Regina King, the film depicts life in poor South Central Los Angeles, California and was filmed and released...
includes one of the characters asking Jason "Furious" Styles' son Tré, "Who's he think you is, Kunta Kinte?" after seeing the chores which the son must complete. On an episode of the HBO drama
The WireThe Wire is an American television drama series set and produced in and around Baltimore, Maryland. Created and primarily written by author and former police reporter David Simon, the series was broadcast by the premium cable network HBO in the United States...
,
BaltimoreBaltimore is the largest independent city in the United States and the largest city and cultural center of the US state of Maryland. The city is located in central Maryland along the tidal portion of the Patapsco River, an arm of the Chesapeake Bay. Baltimore is sometimes referred to as Baltimore...
police detective
Bunk MorelandWilliam "Bunk" Moreland is a fictional character on the HBO drama The Wire, played by actor Wendell Pierce. Bunk's character is based on a retired Baltimore City Police Detective named Rick Requer and nicknamed "the Bunk", an officer who joined the force in 1964 as a Western District patrolman who...
derogatorily refers to an African seaman as "Kunta Kinte" during an interrogation where the seaman refuses to speak
EnglishEnglish is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into what was to become south-east Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria...
. In the film
Coming to AmericaComing to America is a 1988 comedy film directed by John Landis. The screenplay was written by David Sheffield and Barry W. Blaustein, from a story by Eddie Murphy, who also stars in the film. Murphy plays an African prince, who heads to the United States in hopes of finding a woman he can marry...
, Akeem (an African prince posing as a poor exchange student) is teased by the employees and patrons of a barbershop, who good-naturedly refer to him as "Kunta Kinte".
Will Smith's character make a reference to the character on the
Fresh Prince of Bel Air when in regards to being punished he stated, "Why don't you just do me like Kunta Kinte and cut off my foot".
On the January 19, 2002 broadcast of
Saturday Night LiveSaturday Night Live is a live American late-night television sketch comedy and variety show developed by Lorne Michaels and Dick Ebersol. The show premiered on NBC on October 11, 1975, under the original title of NBC's Saturday Night.The show's sketches often parody contemporary American culture...
's Weekend UpdateWeekend Update is a Saturday Night Live sketch that comments on and parodies current events. It is the show's longest running recurring sketch, having been on since the show's first broadcast, and is typically presented in the middle of the show immediately after the first musical performance...
sketch, host Jimmy Fallon, while reporting on ABC's refusal to show the
Roots 25th anniversary special, gave a quick recap on the
Roots story stating "For those of you who don’t remember, ‘Roots’, it follows a saga of Kunta Kinte from young African tribesman, to slavery, to
becoming literateReading Rainbow is an American children's television series aired by PBS from June 6, 1983 until November 10, 2006 that encouraged reading among children. The award-winning public television series garnered over 200 broadcast awards, including scores of Emmy Awards, many for "Outstanding Children's...
, and eventually
being the top of his class at Star Fleet AcademyLieutenant Commander Geordi La Forge is a regular character in the television series Star Trek: The Next Generation and its feature films, played by LeVar Burton...
".