Roots: The Next Generations

Roots: The Next Generations is a 1979 television miniseries that continues the story of the family of Alex Haley from the 1880s, and their life in Henning, Tennessee, to the 1960s, with Haley researching his family history and his travels to Africa to learn of his ancestor, Kunta Kinte. This sequel to the 1977 miniseries is based on the last seven chapters of Haley's Roots: The Saga of an American Family and additional material by him. Roots: The... more

Roots: The Next Generations is a 1979 television miniseries that continues the story of the family of Alex Haley from the 1880s, and their life in Henning, Tennessee, to the 1960s, with Haley researching his family history and his travels to Africa to learn of his ancestor, Kunta Kinte. This sequel to the 1977 miniseries is based on the last seven chapters of Haley's Roots: The Saga of an American Family and additional material by him. Roots: The Next Generations originally aired on ABC as 7 two-hour episodes for consecutive nights from February 18 to February 24, 1979. The story resumes in 1882 where Tom Harvey (Georg Stanford Brown), the great-grandson of Kunta Kinte, has become a prominent leader of the black community in Henning, Tennessee. Although he has established a working relationship with the town's white leader, Col. Warner (Henry Fonda), race relations in the community are still strained. Jim Crow laws, literacy tests, and later the Ku Klux Klan increase the tensions. Tom... less