The production featured a literal who’s who of great American actors, including a now legendary cast of African Americans such as Louis Gossett Jr., John Amos, Ben Vereen, Cicely Tyson and Leslie Uggams, not to mention the unforgettable debut of Burton as Kunte Kinte, captured in Gambia and sold into the American slave trade in 1765 at the age of 15. With a score composed by Quincy Jones and Gerald Fried, Roots captured America’s undivided attention in a way few television shows have done before or since, garnering 36 Emmy Award nominations (winning nine), as well as Golden Globe and Peabody Awards. The finale of the Roots miniseries remains the third highest-rated U.S. television program ever. A sequel, Roots: The Next Generations, was broadcast in 1979, and a second sequel, Roots: The Gift, was produced as a Christmas movie which starred Burton and Gossett.

Fittingly, in honor of Martin Luther King Day, Oprah Winfrey will host a reunion of the cast members who played some of the most unforgettable roles in the Roots miniseries on the Oprah Winfrey Network, Monday, January 16, at 8pm EST. While the miniseries’ place in American television history is firmly established, the story of Kunte Kinte and his descendants had a far deeper and lasting significance for me, helping to determine my outlook on life, choices and values as an African American.

I was 16 years old when my mother informed me and my three younger siblings (ages 15, 13 and 9), that for the first time in our lives, not only would we be allowed to stay up past our bed time for the week (including school nights!), but that we were required to. As a young, divorced single mother struggling on public assistance to help make a dollar out of 15 cents while raising us on her own, she’d long established her word as law, to be violated at risk of our lives. (You know the type: “I brought you into this world, and I’ll… “) Mommy said we had to watch Roots. Over the ensuing eight nights, I would be mesmerized by what I saw on our television screen.

The author, at 16, a year older than Levar Burton's Kunte Kinte (Image: Courtesy of Subject)

First of all, I don’t recall ever seeing more black people on television at one time (excluding news coverage of events such as civil rights marches and racial unrest after the assassination of Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.) before the eight nights that Roots aired. At that point, the main way to see black people on television was by watching sitcoms such as Good Times and Sanford and Son. I still remember it being a big deal when a black person (nearly always an entertainer or athlete) was set to appear on a TV show; my mother would call all of her black friends and neighbors, who would call all of their black friends and neighbors, to ensure that the entire black community tuned in. (Back in those days, black guests performed on late night talk shows, but were almost never invited to the couch to be interviewed by the host.) Seeing all of the great actors and actresses we loved, admired and crushed on was an astonishing source of pride to black people. It’s worth noting that many of the black cast of the Roots miniseries, including Academy Award winner Gossett (Best Supporting Actor, An Officer and A Gentleman) and Academy Award nominee Tyson (Best Actress, Sounder), have gone on to establish themselves among some of the world’s greatest actors.

But the real impact of the Roots miniseries is that it sparked a hunger in me to discover who I really was as a Black American. Before Roots, I thought the African American story began at slavery. Period. In fact, my total knowledge of what it meant to be Black prior to watching Roots consisted of the following: My ancestors were slaves. President Lincoln set us free. Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., with an assist from Rosa Parks, convinced white people of good will to end racial discrimination (at least against “responsible Negroes”). Dr. King was good. Malcolm X–the absolute furthest thing from a responsible Negro–was bad–very bad. And I could grow up to be anything that I wanted to be, even President of the United States of America. Except I could always tell that the people saying this to me, whether black or white, didn’t really believe it themselves. (Interestingly, my mother, who has never expressed anything but unshakeable, matter-of-fact faith in my abilities, never told me I could be the President or anything else she didn’t truly believe herself.)

So having Kunte Kinte and millions like him presented to me as evidence that the story of my ancestry and identity began long before American slavery was a powerful, even shocking, revelation to me. I immediately saw myself differently when I looked into the mirror each day. And it wasn’t just me; when I went to my high school classes each day, I could immediately tell which of my white high school classmates and teachers had also been watching Roots by the way they looked at me. It was as if they were thinking: “Now, Alfred knows. And now, I know. And he knows that I know.” I don’t recall any negativity coming out of it. (My hometown of Long Branch, N.J., had only one high school, so my public school education was very much integrated, though racial conflict was not uncommon.) But everything was unmistakably, irreversibly different. Roots provided the first opportunity for me and my black friends to take cultural pride in who we were, and for some of my white friends to have a deeper appreciation for who I was and how I felt as a black person, even if they couldn’t personally understand or identify with it. I learned that being honest about America’s painful racial history did not have to divide people against each other; in at least a few cases, it helped to increase the respect and deepen the friendships of my white peers.

The bottom line: Roots breathed credibility into the idea that I could, indeed, do and be anything I wanted to. The belief that I was inferior to absolutely no one, white or otherwise, in the eyes of God was seared into my soul by one pivotal scene, where the adult Kunte Kinte (played by Amos) raises his infant daughter Kizzy to the star-spangled heavens and loudly declares: “Behold, the only thing greater than yourself!”

Eighteen months after the Roots miniseries aired, I went away from my hometown for the first time in my life when I started college at Rutgers University, a couple of hours away in New Brunswick, N.J. The appetite for understanding and appreciating black culture and history sparked by Roots became ravenous after my discovery of the great Paul Robeson (widely considered to be Rutgers greatest alumni ever) during my freshman year. I ended up becoming a leader in the Black student movement at Rutgers and the editor-in-chief of the Black Voice/Carta Boricua, a university-wide publication of Black and Latino students. And so began my calling to a career in media as a means of championing the truth, power, beauty and potential of who we are and can choose to be as African Americans. I fell in love with the power of story telling to open eyes and change lives. And to think I owe it all to Roots. Our Roots.

If you want a suggestion from me of how you should spend the Martin Luther King Holiday, or what you should do during Black History Month, how about buying the Roots miniseries on DVD and insisting that the children in your family, church and community sit down to watch and discuss it with you. Even if they have to stay up late on a school night.

Happy 35th Anniversary to Roots. And thank you to each and every person who played a role in bringing the story of Kunte Kinte to life.

(Image: Official White House Photo)

Obama Calls Final End to Iraq War

In a joint news conference with Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, President Barack Obama announced the end of the nine-year war in Iraq.

The head of state warned Iraq’s neighbors that the United States would remain a major player in the region – even after all troops are brought home.

“Our strong presence in the Middle East endures,” Obama said. “And the United States will never waver in the defense of our allies, our partners and our interests.”

Al-Maliki’s trip to Washington came as the last American troops were preparing to leave Iraq ahead of the Dec. 31 deadline. Just 6,000 U.S. forces remain – that’s down from the 170,000 present at the war’s peak in 2007.

Read more at NPR…

Celebrities Protest Lowe’s Ad Pullout From TLC’s ‘All-American Muslim’

Celebrities and bloggers, among others took to the Internet to show their disdain for Lowe’s decision to pull their ads from TLC’s new show, All-American Muslim.

The Florida Family Association, a conservative group, organized an email campaign to get the home improvement store and other advertisers to pull their ads from the show calling it “propaganda that riskily hides the Islamic agenda’s clear and present danger to American liberties and traditional values.”

Russell Simmons, the chairman for the Foundation for Ethnic Understanding, wrote in one tweet, “U endorse hate. U may be held accountable we will promote a boycott if they don’t reinstate campaign and apologise #allamericanmuslim.”

In response to actions from the Florida Family Association and Lowe’s, Moveon.org is circulating a petition to “fight back against bigotry and fear-mongering by publicly repudiating calls to stop advertising during TLC’s ‘All-American Muslim’.”

As of Monday morning, the petition had 7,700 signatures.

Read more at ABC News…

OWN Network to Shift Demographic Focus

Despite Oprah’s iconic brand name and heavy marketing strategy, OWN network ratings aren’t living up to expectations, according to The Hollywood Reporter.

Executives at the network are thinking about tweaking their target demographic and catering to African American audiences. President of the network Erik Logan assures that OWN will not be exclusive, but instead more inclusive.

The OWN original docuseries, Welcome to Sweetie Pies, has been a network standout and is popular among African Americans.

Read more at The Washington Post…

Oprah Winfrey is set to become chief executive officer of OWN (Image: File)

Nearly two months after Oprah Winfrey’s nationally syndicated show ended its 25 year run, the daytime television queen is set to run the show elsewhere as chief executive officer of Oprah Winfrey Network (OWN). Winfrey—who will remain chairman of the network, but adding the role of chief creative officer to her repertoire—will start in the position this fall.

The 57-year-old will take over for interim CEO Peter Liguori, the chief operating officer of Discovery Communications, which co-owns the cable network with Winfrey. In an email message sent Wednesday morning to staffers at OWN and Harpo, the self-made billionaire noted the merger between the newly established channel and her production company.

“This concept of mine, of one team, one mission, and one vision is about to become a day-to-day reality,” she wrote, reported The New York Times.

Winfrey’s decision to combine the teams will hopefully boost the cable channels declining ratings.

“I have no doubt that we will all be in lock step in a very short time,” Winfrey wrote to her staffers Wednesday. “We are in this boat together in a very real way now. And I will put my brand and my future on the line because I know this ONE team — OWN/Harpo — is the boat I want to be in.”

Winfrey replaces Lisa Erspamer as chief creative officer. Erik Logan and Sheri Salata, presidents of Harpo Studios, were appointed presidents of OWN.

President Barack Obama talks Osama takedown on '60 Minutes' (Image: File)

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• Advertising Age Ranks GlobalHue the No. 1 African American Agency; No. 2 Hispanic Agency in 2010

• For related content, read the stories below:

Oprah Winfrey's OWN has six new series and four pickups on its current roster (Image: File)

• Protestors Disrupt House Budget Talks

While the House of Representatives debated over next year’s budget Friday, protesters moved in—singing patriotic (and non-nationalistic) songs over the visitor’s gallery, according to The Associated Press. Capitol Police detained nine protestors.

This news comes a week after a potential government shutdown. That tug of war—or power, rather—between Democrats and Republicans came to a close yesterday. Congress voted Thursday to pass a bill, which cuts government spending by $38 million from the 2011 budget.

• OWN Refreshes Content with Six Additions

Oprah Winfrey’s OWN has recently been in the spotlight for low ratings and a lack of diversity programming, but alas yesterday the network announced the addition of six new series, as well as four pickups.

“After four months on the air it’s great to be able to renew series that connected with our audience,” said Christina Norman, chief executive officer of OWN, according to The Hollywood Reporter. “Our new shows will continue to bring viewers more compelling characters sharing their real life journeys that entertain, engage and inspire.”

The network renewed Ask Oprah’s All Stars, Enough Already! With Peter Walsh, Oprah Presents Master Class, In the Bedroom with Dr. Laura Berman, and Our America with Lisa Ling.

The new shows include Confronting, documenting the mediation process between victim and offender; I Owe You My Life, chronicles everyday heroes; Louie Spence Dance Project, a docu-soap about a choreographer and television personality; Sweetie Pies, a docu-series about former Inkette turned soul food restaurateur Robbie Montgomery; My Mom and Me, which examines unique mother-daughter relationships under a therapist’s counsel, and Unfaithful: Stories of Betrayal, features couples who have moved beyond infidelities in their relationship.

• It’s Official…Dennis Walcott Is (Permanently) In the Building

New York State Education Commissioner David Steiner made things official Thursday, granting Dennis Walcott the waiver needed to assume his current role as chancellor of New York City public schools.

Walcott wasted no time keeping his promises and interacting with city schoolers. The Queens resident visited PS 10 in Park Slope, making the students homemade, health-conscious waffles. He returned to the Brooklyn school a year after promising students he made the best breakfast treat.

“You can tell he cares about the kids,” Principal Laura Scott said to The New York Daily News. “We have a lot of hope for [him]. He’s a hands-on person.

So, how does a network that premiered with 1 million primetime viewers go from stellar figures to 315,000 the following Tuesday and 237,000 at the end of February? Not to mention, OWN’s target audience—women 25-54—are currently only 0.1% of the network’s viewers, a slip from 0.6% opening weekend.

Critics have attributed the fall to various factors, from the lack of racial diversity and appeal of programming to Oprah simply not appearing enough on her self-titled network outside of one show and occasional cameos.

Recent Nielsen ratings show The Oprah Winfrey Network's ratings continue to decline (Image: OWN)

Richard Dubin, a television studies expert and professor at the Newhouse School at Syracuse University, says it’s unclear as to what OWN is offering its target audience, even citing its deviation from a 25-year-old brand, where Oprah is consistently the focal point.

“They really never extended the Oprah brand,” says Dubin. “I don’t know why, and frankly it’s a mystery to me as I look at this, they launched this network without her at the center of it. There’s no Oprah on [The] Oprah [Winfrey Network].”

A network spokesperson declined to comment on OWN’s ratings, but spoke to Blackenterprise.com on the diversity allegations, saying, “It’s important that OWN reflects the world we live in. We want the audience to see themselves in our programming regardless of their ethnicity, and we will continue creating original series and specials to achieve that goal.”

OWN is approaching its three month anniversary, and only time will tell if the network will be able to tread in the same waters as its competitors—Oxygen and WE tv. February ratings show Oxygen, a network in which Oprah invested in with a group of others in 1998, far outpaces OWN in viewership with 426,000 compared to 237,000 viewers, but only 0.1% higher when it comes to their target market.

“What’s Your Next Chapter?” That’s the cover line on the January 2011 issue of O: The Oprah Magazine, which features Lady O in a director’s chair with the letters O-W-N on the back.

In case you haven’t heard, Oprah Winfrey is definitely entering into the next chapter. On January 1st, the media dynamo launched OWN, The Oprah Winfrey Network, a cable channel that pushes her “Live Your Best Life” motto 24-7. The decision to start the network came after a conversation Oprah had with David Zaslav, CEO of Discovery Communications, in 2007, in which he suggested the idea. “I got up from the meeting and said, ‘David, come with me. I want to show you something,’” Winfrey remembers. What she had to show him was a page from her journal, dated May 24, 1992, where she had written that she wanted to create her own network, and that, at the time, she told her longtime partner, Stedman Graham, that, “I think it should be called OWN.” How does she define the culmination of that meeting with Zaslav and the clairvoyant journal entry? “Absolute divine order.”

Now it’s up to Oprah and her team to deliver the goods. On the premiere show, she stood in all white, on a cozy new set, outlining all of the programs that she’s “so excited” to share with you: behind-the-scenes of the final season of the Oprah Winfrey Show, on the road with Winona and Naomi Judd, and Master Class with some of her favorites like Jay-Z and Diane Sawyer.

Oprah said the new network and its reality shows are all about ”showing humanity.” It’s your network, after all, one that she wants you to feel ownership of (although you’re not splitting it 50-50 as she is with Discovery). But does America really want “humanity,” or do too many of us crave those humiliating moments that make reality TV irresistible—the cat-fighting caricatures, the name-calling, the who’s gay and who’s dating whom? Oprah Winfrey has prided herself on offering programming that is uplifting, positive, other. Are we ready?

In 1992, Bill Cosby made a run for NBC and was prepared to pay General Electric a reported $4 billion for the network and said that he was “interested in making quality television shows and that he would surround himself with ‘good people’ to handle all the details of running a network,” reported the New York Times. The deal never went through. In 1998, Oprah invested with a group of others in the Oxygen Network, her first foray into broadcast ownership, a decision she now views as a wrong move, but one that taught her plenty. “What I learned from that experience is: Put your name on nothing that you can not control. Because you need to maintain your voice in all things… The mistake I made with Oxygen was that, for me, it was an ego move,” she said in O Magazine.

Ego move or power move, Oprah Winfrey has us all watching once again. What does her move mean for African-Americans? For women in media? For us all? Time, and ratings, will tell.

See  more news on celebrities making big business moves:

• The Business Lessons of Jay-Z
• Swizz Beatz on the Beauty of Investing in Art
• Actor Jamie Hector Moves Mountains for a Good Cause

Former MTV President Christina Norman has been named CEO of OWN: The Oprah Winfrey Network, a concept that Winfrey came up with back in 1992.

“This is the job I’ve been working toward my entire career,” Norman says. “To be building a new channel inspired by Oprah Winfrey and backed by Discovery Communications is a challenge I welcome, and I am thrilled to bring their vision for OWN to life.”

As CEO, Norman will oversee all business and creative areas of OWN, the new cable channel and multiplatform media venture. She will work closely with Robin Schwartz, president, OWN Television, in building the new cable network slated to launch in late 2009/early 2010 on what is currently the Discovery Health Channel.

OWN will debut in 2009 in more than 70 million homes, on what is currently the Discovery Health Channel. The venture will also include Winfrey’s Website, Oprah.com.

“I’ve always had the utmost admiration and respect for Christina’s innovative strategies and management style. She is a proven leader. Her shared values, passion and enthusiasm make her a natural fit for OWN’s emerging platforms. We’re thrilled to have her,” Oprah says.

Norman, a veteran of MTV Networks for more than 17 years, was named president of MTV in 2005 and oversaw all aspects of the network’s creative and business endeavors, providing leadership, strategy, and management. Before that, she was president of MTV’s sister network, VH1. Norman began her career in the commercial production business in New York in the ’80s, and began her tenure with MTV as a freelance production coordinator.

Winfrey’s dream of a network has been a long time in the making.

On May 24, 1992, she wrote in her journal that she wanted to create a network called OWN. She transferred her thoughts to a journal that this new network would provide useful, meaningful programming.

In 2007, when her development group asked if she would meet with David Zaslav, Winfrey admitted that she didn’t even know who he was at the time, but admired his work. The recently installed president and CEO of Discovery Communications, which operates a series of cable networks, had been responsible for the Planet Earth series that fascinated her.

The admiration was mutual. Zaslav was a fan of Oprah’s media message, “Live your Best Life,” and proposed a 24-hour opportunity to encourage TV viewers to think differently about health, relationships, and other aspects of their lives.

“I got up from the meeting and said, ‘David, come with me. I want to show you something.’” Winfrey then revealed the prophetic page she had ripped from her journal. Oddly enough, she found it in a desk drawer she was clearing just a few days before the meeting. “Absolute divine order,” she said.

Winfrey’s formula for success, which also includes a solid business team and sound financial controls, has taken Harpo Inc. from a small, five-person production company to a more than 400-employee multimedia conglomerate that grossed $345 million in 2007 and is ranked No. 14 on the B.E Industrial/Service 100 list. She is one of a handful of black billionaires across the globe, with a net worth estimated at more than $2 billion.

Winfrey says: “I haven’t planned one thing—ever. I have just been led by a strong instinct, and I have made choices based on what was right for me at the time.”

Norman was named a “Power 100 Women in Entertainment” by The Hollywood Reporter. She will report directly to the OWN board of directors and will assume her new post on Feb. 17. She will be based in Los Angeles at the network’s headquarters.

Sonia Alleyne contributed to this article.

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