Kunta Kinte

Short Biography

Kunta Kinte (1750-1822; also known as "Toby Waller") was a Gambian–born American slave. The outline of his life story was the basis for the novel Roots: The Saga of an American Family by American author Alex Haley, and the television miniseries Roots, based on the book. Haley described his book as faction: a mixture of fact and fiction. After Haley's book became nationally famous, American author Harold Courlander noted that the section describing Kinte's life was apparently taken from Courlander's book The African. Haley at first dismissed the charge, but later issued a public statement affirming that Courlander's book had been the source, and Haley attributed the error to a mistake of one of his assistant researchers. The character in the miniseries was portrayed as a youth by LeVar Burton and as an older man by John Amos.