MARTIN, Tenn. – The University of Tennessee at Martin, in conjunction with two UT Martin regional centers and the Dunbar-Carver Museum in Brownsville, will host screenings of the miniseries “Roots” in six sessions.
The community screenings of “Roots” will take place Tuesday evenings at 6 p.m. on September 8, 15, 22, and 29, and October 6 and 20 at these locations:
- Dunbar-Carver Museum, 709 E. Jefferson St., Brownsville.
- UT Martin Ripley Center: 315 Washington St., Ripley.
- UT Martin Somerville Center: 214 Lakeview Road, Somerville.
- UT Martin main campus: 121 Holt Humanities Building.
Following each session, the venues will have a Zoom meeting to discuss the evening’s
episode.
The screenings come on the 50th anniversary of the publication of the novel it is based on and 40
years after Haley visited the UT Martin campus in 1986.
The novel “Roots: The Saga of an American Family” was published in 1976 and led to an eight-
part miniseries, “Roots,” broadcast in 1977. It tells the story of author Alex Haley’s family from
his ancestors being brought to the United States from Africa to Haley’s life in the 1970s. The
book spent 22 weeks at No. 1 on The New York Times Best Seller List.
The “Roots” miniseries describes the history of Haley’s ancestors from Kunta Kinte, captured as
an adolescent in Africa and brought into slavery in America, to “Chicken” George, Kinte’s
grandson, and his life after the Civil War. The latter seven chapters of the novel were adapted
into a second miniseries, “Roots: The Next Generations,” which aired in 1979.
The eight episodes of the miniseries were reduced to six episodes after the commercials were
removed.
The “Roots” community screening event is a collaboration between the UT Martin Department
of History and Philosophy, the UT Martin Ripley Center, the UT Martin Somerville Center and
the Dunbar-Carver Museum in Brownsville.
Organizers include Dr. Henri Giles, assistant professor of African American Studies; Dr. Sonia
Scott, director of the UT Martin Ripley Center; Kara Tapp, director of the UT Martin Somerville
Center; Jason Holloway, strategic partnership coordinator for UT Martin Regional Centers; and
Myron Stamps, UT Martin veteran services coordinator.
As a child, Alex Haley lived in Henning in Lauderdale County in West Tennessee. That home
became the Alex Haley House and Museum State Historical Site, which was listed on the
National Register of Historic Places in 1978. The property also includes Alex Haley’s burial site,
and is just 5 miles from the UT Martin Ripley Center.
William Alex “Bill” Haley Jr., a grandson of Alex Haley, will be a guest speaker at the Fall
ENTICE Conference at UT Martin. He is scheduled to speak at 6 p.m., Wednesday, September 23, in
the Phillip Watkins Auditorium of the Boling University Center.
For more information about UT Martin, visit www.utm.edu or call (800) 829-UTM1 (-8861).
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