After the baby girl is born, Kunta lifts the swaddled child up to the night sky and says "Behold the only thing greater than yourself." These words reference a scene in the 1977 miniseries, when an older Kunta, played by John Amos, tells his newborn daughter Kizzy the same thing against a starlit sky. When Kunta and Fiddler arrive at the river crossing with the runaway slaves, a woman in their party goes into labor. ' Live free or die.'" Another interpretation is the chance for a new life, symbolized by the birth of a child on Christmas Eve. When Kunta visits Cletus in his cell to bring him food, the captured freedman offers him a word of wisdom in return: "I will give you a Christmas gift. One stated meaning of the "gift" mentioned in the title is freedom. Nevertheless, Kunta and Fiddler are left with the satisfaction of knowing that they helped to give a group of fellow slaves the best Christmas gift of all: freedom. That choice forces them to return to the Parker plantation and manufacture an excuse for their temporary absence. Although the pair successfully leads the runaways that night to their next stop on the escape route (a boat waiting at the river) there is only room for one of them, and since neither one wants to go without the other, they both decide to stay. Kunta is eager to help (and to escape himself), but Fiddler is unwilling, fearful of the consequences if they are caught.Īfter an unsuccessful slave revolt elsewhere in the colony, Moyer and two slaves are hanged by Carraway's men on Christmas Eve, prompting Fiddler to set aside his fear and help Kunta lead the runaway slaves to freedom. Moyer implores two slaves from the nearby Reynolds plantation to take his place: Kunta Kinte ( Burton), a Mandinka in his mid-twenties who was captured in what is now the Gambia, and Fiddler ( Gossett), an elderly man who was born into slavery. Because of his capture, dozens of slaves who have already left their plantations in escape attempts are in danger of being captured as well. In the days just prior to Christmas, a group of bounty hunters led by Hattie Carraway ( Kate Mulgrew) captures Moyer near the Parker plantation in Spotsylvania County, Virginia. In December 1775, Cletus Moyer ( Avery Brooks) is a free black Northerner in colonial America, working with a pre- Underground Railroad network to help slaves escape captivity. The film takes place between the second and third episodes of the original Roots series. reprise their respective roles of Kunta Kinte and Fiddler.
The film premiered on ABC on December 11, 1988, with AT&T as the sole national sponsor for the broadcast, and was crafted as a Christmas film.
It is the third installment of the Roots miniseries. Roots: The Gift is a 1988 television film. American TV series or program Roots: The Gift
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