Roots

Your name is Toby. Now tell me your name.

- Kunta Kinte. - That's not your name!

And I will name you Kizzy.

I think I was selfish

to have you born into a world like this.

You trained me well.

Kizzy!

Kizzy!

This is my right!

Help me!

I'm gonna name you after my daddy...

George Lea II.

Come on. What you got, boy?

I got to know a time gonna come when I can buy me free.

I don't see why not, George.

And I'm gonna see you again, my mornin' dove.

A name is who you is.

My daddy took whippings to protect his name.

You get to making babies,

Tom would be a fine name for a boy.

Just bring yourself home safe.

You win this for me, and I'll set you free.

I swear.

That Englishman will call me even if I give you to him...

- take back to England. - England?!

Get this nigger off of me!

Who gonna watch my family?

Tom Lea!

£100 on the red.

£200 on the white.

£500 on the white.

Yeah, yeah, I cant take some bets.

Mandinka say, "Everything that enchants also deceives."

I'm not sure which is more exotic...

your bird or your nigger.

Now, would another £10,000 clarify the issue?

Done.

Excellent.

All right, there he is.

We're stronger, faster, smarter, prettier.

Insult to be in the same pit with you and me.

Now, what you gonna do about it?

Whoo!

Ladies and gentlemen, America is a wild and dangerous land.

One time, I saw a Carolina bobcat

drag a man high up a hickory tree,

and two minutes later, his skeleton fell back down.

Flesh picked clean.

Just raining bones. Clickety-clack.

I've been chased by savages, painted faces.

After he was sent off to settle a gambling debt,

Chicken George won nearly every match.

The English loved him, and he fell

into his old ways playing to the crowd.

Let me tell you now, I have wrestled mountain men

big as bears.

They all naked. They men parts covered only by their beards.

Chicken George!

Chicken George!

You've served me well, George.

And I want to assure you when I've earned back

the money Tom Lea lost to me, I will send you home a free man.

Just wanted to know, sir.

When would that be?

Sir, how much longer I got...

I will tell you when the time is right.

By the time Sir Eric set him free,

George had been in England for over 20 years...

no longer enchanted, no longer deceived.

Stand at the gate.

Traveling homeward, George felt the past surge around him.

He remembered how Kizzy said Kunta Kinte came to visit her,

but George was afraid that his vision

would mean something different...

that his seven children would think of him

as little more than another story.

Or worse, that they had forgotten him altogether.

_

Did you fall?

I just sit away from the trees,

feel the light on my face.

Miss Malizy?

It's George.

- George? - Chicken George.

I'm back from England.

George?

Come on now. Let's get you up.

Where is my family?

I know where your mama is.

Kizzy got a pain in her side.

She knew she was dying.

Mama.

I'm sorry.

Mama...

Miss Malizy, I'm gonna look around.

Then I'll gonna come back and take you with me.

Oh, no, sir. No. No.

I got a right to be here.

I worked this ground every day of my life.

I got a right to be buried by Kizzy.

Miss Malizy, I got to go look for my family.

You ask Master Tom?

Tom Lea's still alive?

Mm-hmm.

I'll shoot you, nigger, right here.

Let my chickens peck at your cold, black body.

I know you're here to rob me.

But I reckon I could kill you first.

Kill your own baby boy, Massa Tom?

I know you?

Sure you do.

All right.

George?

My George?

You come back for me, George.

You say his name Benjamin Murray,

Alamance County?

Murray. Benjamin Murray.

That's who bought my children?

He an engineer at the Fayetteville arsenal.

That right?

Needed the money, George.

How could you leave me?

Oh, I didn't leave you.

You sold me to pay a gambling debt,

just like you sold my children.

I taught you everything.

It's all right.

Got you a life with fancy folk in England.

What did I get?

Patricia run off.

Whore.

Old niggers can hardly work.

Who's gonna look after me, George?

Who's gonna cook and clean?

Who's gonna obey me?

You said you'd leave papers for my family,

so they free.

You swore that to me as they was dragging me away!

Said you'd set my wife and all my children free.

So did you write them papers for my family?

Where are they?

You a man without honor, Tom Lea.

You walked your feet out them dirt hills.

Not your filthy soul.

You and me have the same blood, boy.

I'm your daddy.

No, the blood in me from Kizzy, not you...

blood that kept me strong all these years away.

What few good things I done, that the blood of my granddaddy.

And every damn bit of foolishness in me,

everything weak, everything selfish...

that's you, Tom Lea, 'cause that's who you is.

You ain't smart enough to change yourself.

And the truth is, your whole damn life,

you was a slave, too.

You just never knew it.

God damn you.

Tom?

Tom!

Oh, Tom!

Mama, what you doing out here? You got to get to work.

I need you to stop at the Barton farm on your way back.

See Old Man Augustus.

He... he sells that special chestnut tea for asthma.

Mama, I'm not passing that way.

Besides, Massa Murray knows how many stops I make.

Son.

I'll work fast, mama.

Bring some back for you.

Hey, now you got to get to work.

You got a big heart, like your daddy.

I ain't like my daddy.

I'll never do nothing foolish to make Massa Murray angry,

get myself sold away.

You just get home safe.

It only takes one crazy redneck,

and Massa's road papers don't mean nothing.

Just look after Irene and that baby in her belly.

Now, get going now.

Hyah!

Business used to come to me in bunches.

Now with all this war talk, can't keep my shop open.

It ain't safe to be a colored free man in Carolina no more.

Ain't never been safe to be a slave.

Mm-hmm.

I hear Mr. Murray send a fine blacksmith

like you all over the state, Tom.

He pay you a little?

I need to finish up with you, man.

Come on out here, boy.

This boy a runaway. Stay up here mostly.

I tell folks he's my slave.

Some freemen keep niggers, too.

How long you been hiding?

August be seven whole years.

Seven years?

My brother and me ran away from Chatham County.

He got caught, but they didn't see me.

I hid in the bushes.