AN ESTIMATED 80 million Americans huddled around their TV sets watching the same drama​—the last episode in an eight-part serial called “Roots.” Thus, on January 30, 1977, they set a new record for the number of people viewing a television program.

“Roots” is the story of one black family as it journeyed from Africa through generations of American slavery and found eventual freedom. But why did this ‘fictionalized history’ stir the interest of so many?

While there undoubtedly are several reasons, perhaps the most profound is that they were struck with the full impact of what it meant to be a black slave. A great historical atrocity was ‘brought to life.’ As one woman said: “Something inside me tried to say that slavery wasn’t that bad, but now I know that it really was a lot worse.”

Sadly, in studying history, one is forced to realize that there have been many great atrocities, many holocausts. Numerically, the treatment of the Africans captured and taken by ship to the Americas, ranks as one of the greatest. The Encyclopœdia Britannica (11th Edition, Vol. 25, p. 222) states: “Out of every lot of 100 shipped from Africa 17 died in about 9 weeks, and not more than 50 lived to be effective labourers in the [West Indies] islands.” Since “estimates of the slaves shipped across the Atlantic run from 30,000,000 to 100,000,000,” the numbers who perished were huge indeed. The New Encyclopædia Britannica, 15th Edition, Vol. 1, p. 283.

Rather, we must try to understand what did happen. For example, a British documentary, “The Fight Against Slavery,” showed, as reported in one magazine, “that slavery was a crime not merely against blacks but all humanity. Guilt must be shared by both races, since many slavers were Africans.”​—Time, January 24, 1977, p. 56.

Too, generalizations about any event or situation are dangerous. In the worst of times individuals were affected differently. For example, under slavery, some blacks were treated well. Others were chained, raped, maimed and torn from their families at whim. The remaining question is: How, with the guilty long dead, can those responsible be punished? If one would persecute all white people, many innocent people would be hurt.

On the other hand, the opposite extreme​—‘that’s no concern to me; it’s all dead history’​—also is unwise. Must persecution come against one’s own family for one to recognize how dreadful it is? Should not what minorities have suffered help us to show compassion toward them? Since many atrocities have come out of myths as to racial or social inferiority, can we afford to adopt such fictional thinking?