In 1977, African-American author Alex Haley published Roots: The Saga of an American Family, in which he traces the history of his mother's family. Roots begins in 1750 with Kunta Kinte, a young man who was captured in Africa by slavers and brought to the United States where he eventually tells the story of Kinte's descendants through seven generations in America. The book immediately captured the imaginations of both whites and blacks in the always racially uneasy United States. By February 1977, it was the number-one-selling book in the nation. Roots: The Saga of an American Family spent 20 weeks on the New York Times bestseller list, earned its author a Pulitzer prize, and, later the same year, was made into a television event: a 12 hour mini-series that was broadcast over eight consecutive nights to more viewers than had watched any program in the history of television. One hundred and thirty million...