page_title: Roots: The Saga of an American Family
section_title: Reception
hierarchical_section_title: Roots: The Saga of an American Family / Reception
caption_attribution_description: English: Alex Haley boyhood home historical marker in Henning, TN (Dec. 2007) Photo made by: Thomas R Machnitzki http://nutbush.machnitzki.com I made the photo myself, feel free to use it. The marker reads: 4E 71 Alex Haley's Boyhood Home Will Palmer, a prominent Henning businessman, built this house in 1918-19. Palmer's grandson Alex Haley lived here from 1921 to 1929 and later spent many summers with his grandparents. It was on the porch that he heard the stories told by his grandmother and aunts which inspired him to write his 1976 Pulitzer Prize-winning book Roots. Millions of Americans watched an eight-part television adaption the following year. Tennessee Historical Commission (Please do not remove the full text of the marker, this makes it easier for blind people to convert to Braille and read it. Converting the text from the image would be hard to do. Thank you!)
context_page_description: Roots: The Saga of an American Family is a 1976 novel written by Alex Haley. It tells the story of Kunta Kinte, an 18th-century African, captured as an adolescent, sold into slavery in Africa, transported to North America; following his life and the lives of his descendants in the United States down to Haley. The release of the novel, combined with its hugely popular television adaptation, Roots, led to a cultural sensation in the United States, and it is considered to be one of the most important U.S. works of the 20th century. The novel spent forty-six weeks on The New York Times Best Seller List, including twenty-two weeks at number one. The last seven chapters of the novel were later adapted in the form of a second miniseries, Roots: The Next Generations. It stimulated interest in genealogy and appreciation for African-American history.
  The book was originally described as "fiction," yet sold in the non-fiction section of bookstores. Haley spent the last chapter of the book describing his research in archives and libraries to support his family's oral tradition with written records. However, historians and genealogists found critical errors in his research.
context_section_description: Published in October 1976 amid significant advance expectations, Roots was immediately successful, garnering a slew of positive reviews and debuting at number five of The New York Times Best Seller list (with The Times choosing to classify it as non-fiction). By mid-November, it rose to number one. The television adaptation of the book aired in January 1977, further fueling book sales. Within seven months of its release, Roots had sold over 1.5 million copies.
  In total, Roots spent twenty-two weeks at the number one spot on The Times' list, including each of the first eighteen weeks of 1977, before falling to number three on May 8. It did not fall off of the list entirely until August 7. By then, the list had featured it for forty-six weeks. Together, the success of the novel and its 1977 television adaptation sparked an explosion of interest in the fields of genealogy and researching family histories.
  Haley earned a Pulitzer Prize special award in 1977 for Roots. The television miniseries garnered many awards, including nine Emmys and a Peabody.
caption: Historical marker in front of Alex Haley's boyhood home in Henning, Tennessee (2007)
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