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Many critics and other viewers, while readily conceding that the TV series was not a precisely accurate recounting of history (few dramatizations are),nonetheless praised the production for what one of them called its mythic veracity. They had a point. For millions of Americans, Roots was real—if not necessarily literally true (see ESSAY).
For all its artistic shortcomings, Roots had a raw, visceral impact on many viewers. A handful of people, mostly teenagers, reacted violently. In Greenville, Miss., some white junior high school students taunted blacks: "You ol' slave, my granddaddy owned you once upon a time." Chanting "Roots, roots, roots," a gang of black toughs roughed up four white youths at Detroit's Ford High School. A well-to-do white woman in Atlanta voiced one fear: "I thought Roots was awful. The blacks were just getting settled down, and this will make them angry again." African History Professor John Henrik Clarke of New York's Hunter College was also concerned that Roots would worsen race relations in the short run.
Despite the scattered acts of violence, most observers thought that in the long term, Roots would improve race relations, particularly because of the televised version's profound impact on whites. Said John Callahan, professor of American literature at Lewis and Clark College in Portland, Ore.: "We now know our roots are inextricably bound with the roots of blacks and cannot be separated." Many observers also feel that the TV series left whites with a more sympathetic view of blacks by giving them a greater appreciation of black history.
This, in fact, seemed to have been the case in many white households. Admitted Beti Gunter, the wife of a lawyer in Little Rock, Ark.: "Something inside me tried to say that slavery wasn't that bad, but now I know that it really was a lot worse." Said Barbara Ash, a vice president of Hart, Schaffner & Marx in Chicago: "I just hurt for them. Guilt is not a good word to describe my feelings—I felt agony." Said Lydia Levin, a law student at the University of California at Los Angeles: "I don't think I ever sat down and thought about what slavery really meant. Whites knew that this happened. We just didn't have to look at it on such a personal level."
There seemed to be scarcely any black Americans, even ones who thought they were well versed in their race's history, who did not come away from their TVs shaken to the core by Roots. Said Aurora Jackson, a social worker in Chicago: "It's one thing to read about this, and another thing to see it. My concept of slavery was always intellectual. For the first time, I really felt I had a picture of how horrible life was."
Like some other blacks, Parren Mitchell, the Maryland Representative who heads the congressional Black Caucus, was so deeply disturbed by the TV series that he had to stop watching after two episodes. Said he: "I couldn't watch the rest. I was too angry. If I had met any of my white friends, I would have lashed out at them from a vortex of primeval anger." And yet, Mitchell went on, he realized that the story "is as much a part of our legacy as Andrew Young being sworn in as U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations by Thurgood Marshall at the White House."