No Expression as Prevalent

Abstract

Chapter 6 revolves around the cultural impact of African American novelist Alex Haley’s Roots: The Saga of an American Family in the late-twentieth century. It specifically examines how the novel and miniseries built upon a pre-existing interest among Black Americans seeking to reconnect with their cultural heritage, though the widescale impact of Haley’s work produced a much more robust examination of slavery’s role in US history among readers and viewers of Roots, and it introduced a method through which descendants of the enslaved might approach that era of history. Ultimately, it argues that Roots’ widespread popularity secured its position in the popular culture of Black Americans and revived a number of discarded customs, including the broomstick wedding. This marital tradition was even highlighted in a controversial plagiarism case made against Haley by the novelist Margaret Walker, whose book Jubilee had also referenced the tradition a decade before. However, alongside Roots immense popularity, popular magazines like Ebony and Jet helped institute a rise in Afrocentric marital practices by the 1980s, and “jumping the broom” started to gain many different meanings and associations as it acquired a larger number of practitioners as Americans entered the 1990s.