Roots Reaction Paper: Visiting London's British Museum

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Roots Reaction Paper
The 1977 Roots movie is quite nostalgic and can also prompt one, like Alex Haley did, to trace their roots. However, as Maranzani (np) writes, such a story or an endeavor must be inspired by an event or something in one’s path. According to Maranzani, Haley got his inspiration at “an unlikely place. While visiting London’s British Museum in 1964, he was struck by the story of the Rosetta Stone, the multi-lingual slab that helped researchers crack the code of Egyptian hieroglyphics, opening a new window of a lost world.” After seeing this, Haley became curious and therefore, sought to know whether the African Phrases passed down to him by his family could be traced. It was not clear to him how long it would take but 12 years later, he was done and with a book which formed the basis for the Movie Roots. It was an almost impossible quest but he worked on it and finally found and connected all the dots. The movie is quite emotional and moves from happy to sad and finally happy when the slaves finally are set free after the Civil War. The arrangement and flow of the movie from Africa to the ship and finally, to America is loaded with a lot of informative events as will be discussed in this article.
First of all, the movie begins by showing how life in Africa was. Life was simple and one thing that catches one’s eye is how manhood was treasured and revered in Kunta’s village. The movie does capture this scene perfectly because in the African traditional setup, manhood was revered and for one to graduate from one phase to another, there were tests one had to pass. For Kunta and other growing boys in his village, they were supposed to survive in the jungle and then wrestle the village wrestler. Like the other boys, Kunta finds it hard to be a man but soldiers on. Upon graduation, Kunta and the other boys return to the village and since he is a man, he is not supposed to live under the same roof with his mother. This bit is quite accurate because even today, there are some African communities which still regard manhood highly and often conducts bravery tests. The movie is quite accurate in its depiction of manhood in the African setup.
The business of slave trade was dirty and most of the perpetrators of this scourge used whichever means to acquire slaves. Slaves could be kidnapped, have their villages raided, and also be sold by powerful African leaders at the ...