Lane Binkley

In 1776, a nation fights for freedom...but not for all. Kunta Kinte escapes again and is crippled by slave catchers. He marries, gains a daughter and loses his long-time friend Fiddler.

At age 16, Kizzy is sold and bears her new master's son, who grows up to become fun-loving Chicken George. Yearning to see her parents, Kizzy is comforted by Samuel Bennett, but they are ill-matched.

Chicken George is sent to England as payment for his owner's gambling debt. Fourteen years later, he returns home a free man, a status that has a profound effect on the family begun by Kunta Kinte.

On Christmas Eve 1770, a young African warrior, who three years prior had been captured and sold into slavery in America, leads a desperate group of runaway slaves as they attempt to reach freedom in the North. Based on the characters from the novel Roots by Alex Haley.

Mary brings home a pregnant friend, Matilda, whose attitudes towards marriage upset Tom. She learns the joys of parenthood, and paternal Tom helps deliver the baby. Also available on iTunes

The Civil War is over but night riders terrorize ex-slaves. By marking his clients' horseshoes, Tom identifies the raiders but endangers his own life.

Despite a violent rebellion, the slave ship Lord Ligonier completes its voyage and Kunta Kinte endures the indiginity of an Annapolis slave auction.

His name was Kunta Kinte. Kidnapped from Africa and enslaved in America in 1767, he refused to accept his slave name of Toby. Heirs kept his heroic defiance alive, whispering the name of Kunta Kinte.

Tom Harvey (BROWN) assumes the leadership of the black community in Henning, Tennessee from his aging father, Chicken George (LONG). Tom establishes a school but trouble brews when Col. Warner's (FONDA) son, Jim (THOMAS) falls in love with the black schoolteacher, Carrie (HAUSER). Tom meanwhile faces a crisis in his own family when his daughter Elizabeth (MORGAN) falls in love with a light-skinned negro who he considers "too white" for her to marry.

Seventeen years later: Will Palmer (SHAW) prospers as the owner of the lumber company. His daughter Bertha (CARA) goes to college where she falls in love with Simon Haley (HAREWOOD), a poor sharecropper's son. Bertha picks up Simon's diploma as he leaves school a week early to join the Army and World War I.

Simon Haley (HAREWOOD) spends World War I with the 92nd Infantry, Colored, in France. On his return to the States, Simon and his buddies Doxey (WELDON) and Haywood (CASEY) are greeted by a lynch mob in Knoxville, Tennessee. Simon finally arrives in Henning where he marries Bertha (CARA) and announces that they are going to Cornell University where he will take a master's degree in agriculture. Fourteen months later they return to Henning with their first son, Alex Haley.