The Roots of "Roots" (1976) [[Archive Episode]]
This Day in Esoteric Political History
Jody Avirgan & Radiotopia
4.6 • 982 Ratings
🗓️ 6 August 2023
⏱️ 17 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
On Sundays this summer, we’re bringing you some of our favorite episodes from the archives. We’ll continue to do new episodes on Tuesdays and Thursdays. Happy summer!
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It’s August 18th. This day in 1976, Alex Haley’s sprawling epic Roots hits the bookshelves. It quickly caused a sensation — and controversy.
Jody, Niki, and Kellie discuss how Haley’s work came together, the enormous impact it had, and the mix of fact and fiction that somewhat clouded the work.
Check out Reconsidering Roots, the book Kellie edited about Haley and the Roots television miniseries.
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And don’t forget about Oprahdemics, hosted by Kellie, out now from Radiotopia.
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Our team: Jacob Feldman, Researcher/Producer; Brittani Brown, Producer; Khawla Nakua, Transcripts; music by Teen Daze and Blue Dot Sessions; Audrey Mardavich is our Executive Producer at Radiotopia
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hey everyone Jody Avigan here on Sundays over the course of the summer July and August |
| 0:04.4 | We're going to be bringing you some of our favorite episodes from the Archives |
| 0:07.8 | You're still going to get brand new episodes on Tuesdays and Thursdays, but we're giving ourselves a little bit of a break on Sundays running a previous episode. |
| 0:15.4 | It's still from around the same date, so it will still hook in in that way. |
| 0:19.6 | But look, we've done about 450 of these. |
| 0:22.1 | There's a good chance you haven't heard this one or haven't heard it in a while and might want to re-listen. |
| 0:27.0 | So here we go with a Sunday favorite from the archives. |
| 0:32.0 | Hello and welcome to this day in esoteric political history from Radiotopia. |
| 0:36.0 | My name is Jody Avergan. |
| 0:40.0 | This day, August 18th, 1976, a new book hits the bookshelves. The book was Roots. |
| 0:46.4 | Alex Haley's sprawling epic tracing his family back to a person by the name of Kunta Kinte and in many ways tracing the history of slavery and the African American experience in this country. |
| 0:58.8 | Roots was a sensation, a massive bestseller of a book and as you likely know an epic television |
| 1:05.1 | mini-series not long after but um today we'll talk mostly about the book and |
| 1:10.0 | I guess the roots of roots and here to discuss that are as always |
| 1:14.3 | Nicole Hammer of Vanderbilt and Kelly Carter Jackson of Wellesley. Hello there |
| 1:18.1 | Hello Jody. Hey there and we should of course Kelly, you edited a book called Reconsidering Roots, |
| 1:25.8 | Race, Politics, and Memory. |
| 1:27.6 | So this is very much in your wheelhouse. |
| 1:30.4 | Oh yes. |
| 1:31.4 | I'm excited to dive in. This is great. Yeah for sure. We've been |
| 1:35.1 | doing a lot of my favorites lately. I got to say you know I want to hear all |
| 1:41.6 | about the book and so forth but you know one thing that just caught my I |
... |
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