Roots: The Next Generations

Roots The Next Generations is a television miniseries, introduced in 1979, continuing, from 1882 to the 1960s, the fictionalized story of the family of Alex Haley and their life in Henning, Lauderdale County, Tennessee, USA. Henning is about 48 miles north of Memphis, which is on the Mississippi River and in the southwest corner of the state, and which was then the largest city in it. This sequel to the 1977 miniseries is based on the last seven chapters of Haleys novel entitled Roots The Saga of an American Family plus additional material by Haley.

The story resumes in 1882,years after the arrival of Chicken George Moore Avon Long and his family in Henning, in West Tennessee. George, elderly and showing his age, moves in with Tom Harvey Georg Stanford Brown, one of his sons, along with Toms wife, Irene Lynne Moody, and their two daughters, Elizabeth and Cynthia. Tom, a greatgrandson of Kunta Kinte, has become a leader of the black community in Henning. Although he has established a working relationship with the towns white leader, Col. Frederick Warner Henry Fonda, a former officer in the Confederate Army, race relations are strained, due in part to the new Jim Crow laws and similar influences.Col. Warners younger son, Jim Richard Thomas, meets and falls in love with Carrie Barden Fay Hauser, an attractive young AfricanAmerican schoolteacher and a graduate of Fisk University, a black school in Nashville the capital of the state and in Middle Tennessee. Tom has taken the lead in hiring Carrie for the local school for the black children. Col. Warner disapproves of the relationship between Jim and Carrie, so he seeks to persuade Tom to fire Carrie or to close the school. After an argument between Tom and his older daughter, Elizabeth Debbi Morgan, about his refusal to accept her suitor, John Dolan Brian Stokes Mitchell, because he is half white, Tom decides to allow Carrie to continue teaching. Jim and Carrie marry in Memphis, then Col. Warner disinherits Jim by removing him from his will, but he says that he will ensure that no harm comes to the couple from the hoodlum white element of the town. Jim, with his new bride, receives a warm welcome to the local black church. ........

Source: Wikipedia