He was a reputed gamecock trainer who earned his independence long before slavery was abolished in America.
Chicken George was the son of his owner, his mother’s owner, which was a common occurrence in those days. Kunta Kinte had a daughter called Kizzy, who had a son called Chicken George. These descended through each generation, adding the story of their own generation as they passed it on. Kunta Kinte is said to have passed on his story to his daughter, along with some words of the African dialect that he spoke. Captured while he was chopping woods near his village, he was sold to slave traders and put on board a ship bound for unknown lands and a dark future. Two hundred years after his ancestor embarked on his unwilling journey, Haley stood on the same dock where Kunta Kinte is believed to have been put ashore, in America. Back to Kunta Kinte, who, the family stories said, lived in a place called Kamby Bolongo. So, Haley was able to trace the stories from his grandmother to her father and her grandparents and thus trace his roots far back. The family had an oral tradition, passing on the tales of this man and his descendants, through each generation. Haley had heard stories about this man from his grandmother, a man she referred to as the African. The novel sets out to trace the author's family history, back to the first member of the family to set foot in America, Kunta Kinte. It made Americans look at where they stood on racial issues at the time the novel was published, in the late 1970s. It also forced the country to do a re-examination of its social and racial history.
Roots resulted in a cultural phenomenon in the United States, kindling a deeper interest in African American history and heritage.
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