It is the year of 1750 and a little boy is born to a family that lives in the small village Jufaray at the African west coast.  The father Omoro Kinte gives him the name Kunta and takes care of him.  He wants to raise him strict but righteous.  Therefore Kunta lives an unburdened life which is characterized by the old traditions of his ancestors.  He helps with the harvest and herds the sheep.   He joins his father at a big journey and grows up to a young man.

The Kinte family is Muslim.  Eight days pass before the father names the child in this Mandinka Tribe.  The kitango is the man who instructs the boys on how to become men.  He is the father figure, the leader during this initiation process.  When he is 15 years old Kunta must wrestle to become a man.   He must also be circumcised.  His fotos (penis) must be cut.  Wrestler call him a warthog because he charges without wrestling.  Another task he must fulfill is to catch a bird and return with it.  While doing this, he meets Fanta from a neighbouring tribe.  As the slavers try to catch blacks, the comment is made that white’s smell like wet chickens.   Black women take up less space on the ship than the men.

Below decks, first mate Slater is given permission to be in control of all that takes place below decks.  

Kaniture is the father of Fanta.  Jufaray iis the name of Kuntea Kinte's village.

At the age of 15 years (15 rains old) Kunta is caught while looking for a log to make a drum.  He is carried off to the coast by four slave hunters.  After several days of torture and hunger Kunta awakes on a big ship. He is cooped up in the lower deck. Kunta who is put in chains starts an involuntary journey.  White slave traders carry him off his African homeland in order to sell him and the members of his tribe in the southern states of North America. For generations of black Africans starts the way into slavery.  On board the ship "Lord Ligonier" he more and more hates his white oppressors but in the same moment his belief in Allah, the will and power to fight for his freedom gets stronger.

While on board, the slaves get sick.  Threre are different tribes.  They soil themselves and vomit.  They also sweat a great deal in the heat.  The stench is severe.  This is in part how they had to exist while on the slave ship.    Some slaves did not want to eat, but to starve themselves to death.  They were beaten in such cases and forced to eat.  Others threw themselves overboard.  Many women were raped.  Kunta had a dream that a large white bird swallowed him.  Wrestler told him that it was symbolic of what whites were doing to Africans.

After a painful and very long crossing the slave ship arrives in America. The black Africans are put in cages like cattle.  Captain Davies opts for the "loose pack" rather than the "tight pack" way of carrying slaves in the hold of the ship.  One way whites fought against the stench was to pour vinegar on a cloth and hold it over the nose.  They are brought to the slave market.  Kunta Kinte must experience how his proud tribe is humiliated and bartered away to white farmers. He is branded and sold to a landed proprietor Mr. Reynolds (in the video) who lives in Virginia. At the slave marked we are told that a black wench 4 months pregnant sells for 20 pounds (£).  We also learn that tobacco costs 6 £ a hundred weight.   Kunta has to have a carbuncle lanced on his back before he can be sold.  The market people talk and one says that blacks “fresh from the trees” work about as hard as a wench 8 months pregnant.   This is where Fiddler appears in the movie.  He helps bring Toby into the culture of slave life on the plantation at the Reynolds, from Spotsylvania, Virginia.  It is Fiddler’s job to “break” Toby (Kunta).  At the slave market, women are referred to as wenches, while men are referred to as bucks.  He gives Kunta the new name "Toby.”  He does not give up his African name because it is all that is left of his from Africa, and it reminds him of his origin and identity. 

The Ship that carried Kunta to Annapolis, Virginia carried tobacco, hardware, spices, and slaves.  Kunta had a yellow sack put over his head when he was kidnapped while looking for a log to make a drum.  Before the kidnapping he was going through initiations to prove himself a man, not a boy.  Kintango was the leader of the initiations.  The wrestler taught him: don’t surround your enemy.  Leave an opening for him to escape.  If you kill your enemy, that makes their children your enemies.

The white sailors considered owning blacks the “natural order of things.”  Mr. Slater, the first mate, said that the whites were saving the blacks with Christianity and saving them from cannibals.  He said they have no proper language, just grunts and groans.   One hundred and seventy slaves were on the ship with Kunta.  The ship's captain is Davies.  Mr. Gardner is the man who catches the blacks on the coast for the captain.   His ship is called the Lord Liganeer. 

On the Reynold’s plantation there is an overseer named Mr. Ames.  He was an indentured servant.  He "breaks in" the slaves.  In the big house, (plantation owner’s house), the whites talk about how a thinking slave will become unhappy.  For this and to prevent them from organizing a revolt, slaves are forbidden to read or write. 

Master Reynolds patronizes Kunta by patting him on the head and telling him to be a “good nigger.”  Fiddler says when referring to how hard the slaves work: “White folks live by it, and niggers die by it.”

Kunta has been the property of Mr. Reynolds for 11 years. "Toby" does his duties but his inner resistance grows.  After three unsuccessful tries to escape he receive punishments including lashes. But all those cannot change his feelings. In spite of impressive warnings he escapes for the fourth time.
This escape totally changes his life and it will affect deeply his self-confidence.  He fins Fanta (Maggie).  He wants her to run away with him, but she is afraid.  She refuses to go with him.  She is the bed wench of her master.  She does not want to get pregnant by Kunta because her children are supposed to be brown, not black.  If she has a black kid, the boss will know she has slept with a black man.  After several days without any sleep he is very exhausted and his white persecutors catch up to him.  Kunta has the choice of cutting off his leg (foot) or genitals. He chooses the foot.

Kunta’s foot gets infected so Bell makes a poultice for his foot.  It contains elderberry leaves and sulfur.   The doctor refers to slave hunters as “castrating butchers” because maim the bodies of the runaway slaves.  Bell takes care of Kunta while he is recuperating. 

In this year the British are defeated by the Americans who gain their independence.

"Toby" Kinte and his wife Bell have a new owner, the brother of Mr. Reynolds, William.  He is a doctor.  He received the slaves as payment from his brother for his bad debts to the doctor.  Kunta finds a new home when his wife bears him a daughter. He names her in the same ceremony that his father named him in Africa, by holding the child up to the heavens at night and saying: “Behold the only thing in the universe that is mightier than you.”  He teaches his daughter Kizzy single words of his native language. Her name means stays put.  He calls the guitar a "ko". The Mattaponi River near the farm he calls "Kamby Bolongo". Furthermore he tells her about his tribe in Africa and how his cruel fate started. 

At his wedding, Kunta and Bell “jump the broom.”  This is the symbolic way to show they are wed, and that they will “jump” into the future together holding hands.  The speaker holding the ceremony says to Toby: “Now that you bought the cow, Toby, you can get all the milk you want.” 

At one point, Toby is tempted to run away again when he hears the drumming coming from the woods in the night.  The drummer, Pompey (Botang, Boriaka is his African name), uses the drums as a signal to call together the blacks who want to run away.  They know they can run north to freedom in the northern United States of Canada.  Bell convinces him to stay for her and their child.  She tells Kunta why she is so afraid.  She had once been married to a wonderful man named Ben.  They had two girls.  Ben ran off.  He got caught and hanged.  The girls were then sold off to another owner.  She tells Kunta that she is pregnant and doesn’t want to lose him or the child.  Kunta finally says: “This ain’t my home, but this is my child, and we’re family!”

Fiddler dies while playing his own original music under a tree.  He no longer played the music the master wanted to hear.  Toby cries for him, remembering all the times Fiddler helped him in life from learning how to talk English, to learning how to survive on the plantation.  His prayer for Fiddler was: “Now you is truly free, Fiddler.  Ain’t living free a fine way to be?” 

Kunta, Bell and their daughter Kizzy have a safe life as slaves at the farm of Dr. Reynolds.  But this safety is treacherous because there are still the laws of the whites.  However the wish of freedom has not died yet. 

Kizzy plays with the doctor’s daughter (he was having an affair with his brother’s wife) Missy Ann a great deal.  They swear they will be true and help each other always.  Missy Ann even taught Kizzy how to read and write.  However, when Kizzy's boyfriend Noah plans his escape using the forged  passport Kizzy made for him, their troubles increase.  Noah's escape does not succeed.  Kizzy, who has broken Dr. Reynold’s rules, is sold on the same day.  Belle and Kunta are destroyed emotionally. 

At this point a low society man appears as a traveler passing by on his way home.  His name is Thomas Moore.  He tells of slave revolt led by an African, Sinkiu, fresh off the boat.  Sinkiu had a plan to kidnap the governor, and to massacre people in Richmond Virginia.  The slaves were caught, skinned alive, and set on fire.  Kizzy was sold to this man.  He raped her repeatedly and wanted to have many slave children by her.  She had a son named George.

In another scene, it becomes clear that slave catchers not only caught runaway slaves, but stole slaves from other owners. 

14 years later.  Kizzy and her son George live on a farm that is owned by a brutal fighting cock breeder Tom Moore.  George depends on Tom Moore like a father. He ignores the warnings of his mother and does not know anything about the rapes that his mother must endure almost every night. Kizzy also tells her son the stories of her African father as well as single words of the African language.   George becomes a master chicken handler. 

One day Mrs. Moore comes out shooting at George thinking he had killed her husband.  She had heard news of a slave revolt under the leadership of Nat Turner.  He ad killed whites including children.  This is where Kizzy taught her son how he could not trust a Tubob (white person).  That’s because Mr. Moore came into the cabin threatening to kill anyone near his house.  Turner and about 80 other slaves were caught.  Turner was hanged. 

Also at this time the video makes reference to fear that blacks have of ghosts.  This is important later on when the nightriders appear (KKK).  The film further reveals that the price to buy one’s freedom is $2,000 (that’s what Marsellis paid for his freedom.) 

Kizzy is courted by a man named Sam Bennett, a handsome driver.  George is not too keen on losing his mother’s attention.   One night, Sam says to Kizzy: “Fetch me some water.”  She throws the water in his face and tells him never to command her to do anything again.  That night, he learns to be polite to her.  She refuses his request to marry her, though, because she does not see him having any plans for his life and because he doesn’t know his roots. 

At one point, Sam had taken Kizzy to visit the Reynold’s farm so she could visit her parents.  They were gone.  Bell was sold to a slaver passing by, and never seen again.  Kunta died some four years later, broken hearted.  In those years he still spoke about running away.  His last words were “Kamby Bolongo”, the river.   This was a symbol for what was soon to follow, his death.  Kizzy found his headstone.  She crossed out the name “Toby” and wrote under it “Kunta Kinte.”

 
With the age of 14 years George starts an apprenticeship with old "Uncle Mingo" who looks after the fighting cocks of his “masser”. When George turns 16 he already is a very good trainer for those fighting cocks. That is why he gets the nickname "Chicken-George" and the people will call him this till the end of his life. 
When he is about 18 years old he meets Matilda who is another slave. They marry in August 1827. In the course of time they have 8 children. At the birth of every child George tells his family about the African stories of his great- grandfather Kunta Kinte. 
The 8 children grow up, marry and have their own children. The fourth son who is called Tom finishes his apprenticeship as a black smith. In the year of 1855 the cock fighting activities reach a sad climax.. Masser Moore looses all of his money and all of his fighting cocks during the biggest fight of his life.  Because of his debts, he must send "Chicken-George" to England and he sells the other slaves to another master.  He promises Chicken-George that he will have his freedom when he returns.   He offers him a certificate of manumission.

The American Civil War causes the white slave owners to fear loosing their property - the slaves.  After long years abroad George comes back as a free man.  Unfortunately his family still lives in slavery.  Kizzy tells him to not stay on the farm, but to go and enjoy his freedom for her.  The policy states that if he stays 60 days, he can become a slave again.  George reluctantly leaves. 

 
Tom marries an Indian slave (Irene) on the farm of master Harvey, a relatively kind master.   In the course of time they have eight children.  Tom also carries on the tradition of telling the children about the history of his African family.  His younger brother is Lewis.  There is a white overseer on the farm called “Ol George” who is married to Martha.  They get on well with Tom and Lewis. 

Finally slavery is abolished but the racism of the whites does not take an end.   There is a family called Brent.  Master Brent (Evan) and his brother Jimmy are hard on the slaves.  Later Tom kills Jimmy by drowning him in a trough of water.  He did so because Jimmy tried to rape Tom’s wife.  Tom’s last sentence to him was: “I want you to know before you go to hell, that the last hands to touch you on this earth were my black hands.”  After the civil war, Master Brent (Evan) took out his anger on the former slaves by becoming a member of the Night Riders, the group that led to the KKK.    Later on, Ol’ George was asked to leave a secret meeting the slaves were having once they found they were free.  Lewis had asked him to go.  Hard feelings then arose between Ol’ George and the Blacks.  During this whole period, we learn that slaves are lent from one owner to another.  

Tom has a good idea to discover the identity of the men attacking him at night.  Since Tom is a black smith, he finds a way to etch a special mark on the horseshoes of the people he works for.  He discovers that the prints in the ground left after another night raid are made by Evan’s horse.  Tom goes to the Sheriff thinking the law is on his side.  The Sheriff tips off Evan.  It turns out that Evan is in league with the senator, who is trying to buy as much land as possible from the broken southern farmers.  He then gets the blacks to share crop the land with him.  But he charges them so much for rentals that they can not break even, and end up working the land for him without being able to get out from under debt to him.

  Evan finds out that Tom told the sheriff that Evan had been involved in the night ridings.  Evan has Tom whipped to teach him not to mess with whites in this way.  At this point, Ol’ George asks to take over the whipping of Tom since he, Ol’ George, was the overseer.  He delays the whipping and claims that Tom is already unconscious.  Evan demands he continue.  He does.  But when Evan rides out of site on the property, Ol’ George starts to whip the ground, and not Tom’s back.  Tom’s son Bud wants to kill all whites.  Martha explains that he can’t kill all whites, they’re not all bad.  She would have to die otherwise.  She teaches Bud how to distinguish between the race and the individuals. 

Tom points his gun at the door, only to find it is his dad, Chicken-George returning.  George says to Matilda: “I don’t see you with my eyes, I see  you with my heart.”  Ol’ George puts on a show in town where Evan can see.  He treats Tom like a “darkie.”  Evan is pleased.  He comments to Tom: “You’re shaping into a good boy!”  The senator suspects something is going on.  He tells Evan to ride out to the farm unexpectedly.  Irene goes to the Sheriff and tears up Tom’s deed to his land so that the night raids will end.  The senator and Evan arrive but things seem to be under control.

Irene goes to town to fetch Mr. Brent to come help George who supposedly broke his leg.  Tom points a gun at him and says he’s been set up.  But Evan came with others to help him, they were hiding behind the barn and rescued Evan.  The helpers of Evan go to the barn to get the other blacks.  Chicken-George throws chickens in their faces.  Then Chicken-George appears with a gun.  He and his family plan on going north to freedom.    Tom has the chance to whip Evan Brent, but chooses only to tie him to the tree.  Matilda and Chicken-George leave in wagons.  They are happy to leave Master Harvey’s. 

Chicken-George brings his family to their new land.  They settled in Henning Tenessee. 

A girl is born to Cynthia and Will. Her name is Bertha George. She is very smart and spoiled by her father. 
Bertha marries Simon Alexander Haley in the year of 1920.  In 1921 Bertha bears a boy whose name is Alexander Palmer Haley.  He is the author of this book.