Kunta Kinte

Kunta Kinte
LeVar Burton as Kunta Kinte in the TV miniseries Roots
Born	c. 1750 Juffure, The Gambia, West Africa
Died	c. 1822 (aged c.71–72) Spotsylvania County, Virginia
Family	Omoro (father) Binta (mother) Belle (wife) Kizzy (daughter) George (grandson) Tom (great-grandson) Alex Haley (descendant)

Kunta Kinte (c. 1750 – c. 1822) KOON-tah-KIN-tay is a character in the novel Roots: The Saga of an American Family by American author Alex Haley. Haley claimed that Kunta Kinte was based on one of his ancestors: a Gambian man who was born in 1750, enslaved and taken to America and who died in 1822. Haley said that his account of Kunta Kinte's life in Roots was a mixture of fact and fiction.

Kunta Kinte's life story also figured in two US-made television series based on the book: the original 1977 TV miniseries Roots, and a 2016 remake of the same name. In the original miniseries, the character was portrayed as a teenager by LeVar Burton and as an adult by John Amos. In the 2016 miniseries, he is portrayed by Malachi Kirby. Additionally, Burton reprised his role as Kunta in the TV movie Roots: The Gift, a fictional tale originally broadcast during the 1988 Christmas season.

According to Roots, Kunta Kinte was born circa 1750 in the Mandinka village of Juffure, in the Gambia. One day in 1767, while Kunta was searching for wood to make a drum for his younger brother, four men chased him, surrounded him, and took him captive. Kunta awoke to find himself blindfolded, gagged, bound, and a prisoner. He and others were put on the slave ship the Lord Ligonier for a four-month Middle Passage voyage to North America.