Kunta Kinte

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Kunta Kinte is the central character of the novel, Roots: The Saga of an American Family by Alex Haley, and of the television mini-series Roots,^[1] based on the book. Roots is referred to by Haley as faction - a mixture of both fact and fiction,^[2] and much of the book's material is borrowed from a book called The African by Harold Courlander. Kunta Kinte was a Mandinka. Kunta was captured and brought as a slave to Annapolis, Maryland, and later sold to a plantation owner in Spotsylvania County, Virginia near the present-day rural community of Partlow.

In the miniseries, the young character was portrayed by LeVar Burton, and the older by John Amos.

1 Memorial
2 Plot summary
3 Influence
4 References

[edit] Memorial

There is a memorial to Kunta Kinte in Annapolis, Maryland.^[3] It is one of few monuments in the world to bear the name of an actual enslaved African; other examples include statues in Brazil of Zumbi from Palmares Quilombo (a black leader of rebellions against slavery) and the statue of Bussa in Barbados. In a set of four life size bronze statues, the Kunta Kinte memorial depicts Alex Haley, book on his lap, telling his family's story to children of three different ethnicities. Granite decorations and bronze plaques accompany the statue group.

In a notorious incident, the original memorial, a bronze plaque, was stolen within forty-eight hours after its installation in 1981. A card was left in its place which read "You have been patronized by the Ku Klux Klan." The plaque was never recovered and was replaced within two months with funds from local residents. The second plaque was stolen as well.^{[citation needed]}

[edit] Plot summary

Haley's novel begins with Kunta's birth in the village of Juffure in The Gambia of West Africa in 1750. Kunta is the first of four sons of the Mandinka warrior Omoro and his wife Binta Kebba. Haley describes Kunta's strict upbringing and the rigors of manhood training he undergoes.

One day in 1767, when the young warrior left his village to find wood to make a drum, he was attacked by four men who surrounded him and took him captive. Kunta awakens to find himself blindfolded, gagged, bound and prisoner of the white men. Haley describes how they humiliate the young warrior by stripping him naked, probing him in every orifice, and branding him with a hot iron. He and others are put on a slave ship for a nightmarish three month journey to America.

Out of 140 Africans, Kunta is one of only 98 who survive the crossing. After arrival in Maryland he is sold to a Virginia plantation owner who renames him "Toby," much to his dismay. During the remainder of his life Kunta never completely gives up his dreams of freedom and trying to escape, even after part of his foot is chopped off. (He was running and the slave catchers caught him and he had a choice to be castrated or lose part of his foot.) He eventually marries another slave named Bell Waller and has a daughter named Kizzy (Keisa, in Mandinka/Mandingo), which in Kunta's native tongue means to "stay put". Unfortunately, When Kizzy is in her late teens, she is sold away to North Carolina when it was discovered that she had written a fake traveling pass for a young slave boy she was in love with (She had been taught to read and write secretly by Missy Anne, niece to the plantation owner). Her new owner rapes her and fathers her only child, George. In the novel, she never learns the fate of her father and mother. She spends the remainder of her life as a field hand on the Lea plantation in North Carolina. The rest of the book tells the story of the generations between Kizzy and Alex Haley, describing their suffering, losses and eventual triumphs in America.^[4]

[edit] Influence

There is an annual Kunta Kinte Heritage Festival held in Maryland.^[5] Kunta Kinte also inspired a reggae rhythm of the same name, performed by artists including The Revolutionaries,^[6] and Mad Professor, and an album, Kunta Kinte Roots by Ranking Dread.^[7] There is also a band of the same name.^[8] He is mentioned in the Kanye West song, Never Let Me Down. He is also mentioned in Missy Elliot's 2002 hit 'Work it', the Bloodhound Gang's 2000 song 'A Lap Dance Is So Much Better When The Stripper Is Crying'. Rap artist Akir mentions him several times in the song named 'Kunta Kinte'. An opening scene of Boyz in the Hood has one of the characters telling Jason "Furious" Styles's son "Who's he think you is? Kunta Kinte??" after seeing the chores which the son must do. On an episode of the HBO drama The Wire, Baltimore Police detective Bunk Moreland deragatorily refers to a seaman as "Kunta Kinte" in an interrogation where the seaman refuses to speak English. In the film Coming to America with Eddie Murphy, the main character is teased by the employees (also played by Eddie Murphy) of a hairdressing salon who welcome him as 'Kunta Kinte' as a joke.