Roots: The Saga of an American Family Critical Essay | Critical Essay by Helen Taylor

Critical Essay by Helen Taylor

SOURCE: Taylor, Helen. “Everybody's Search for Roots: Alex Haley and the Black and White Atlantic.” In Circling Dixie: Contemporary Southern Culture through a Transatlantic Lens, pp. 63-90. New Brunswick, N.J.: Rutgers University Press, 2001.

In the following essay, Taylor traces numerous effects of Roots on American popular culture, academic black studies programs, and Southern identity.

Gone With the Wind created, and perpetuated, a white myth of the South for international readers and audiences throughout the century. In the bicentennial year, 1976, however, a work appeared that looked set to sweep Scarlett, Rhett, and their faithful Mammy into historical oblivion. Alex Haley's autobiography, Roots, was quickly dubbed “the black Gone With the Wind,” its author hailed as a new national hero.¹ The book, filmed immediately for television, brought to audiences on both sides of the Atlantic a new awareness of black heritage, genealogy, and pride. Over the next thirty years, however,...
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