Nearly 40 years later, the series has been reimagined, and is due to air in Australia as the Black Lives Matter movement picks up new momentum.
'African American history had been studied at the university level, but this brought it into the mainstream of American culture,' says Professor Matthew Delmont of the 1977 series Roots.
Delmont is the author of Making Roots, an exploration of the history of the original television series and the book that inspired it, and how it was first perceived by audiences.
