Roots: The Next Generations (TV Mini Series) Part VI (1939-1950) (1979) User Reviews

Damon Evans as the wartime Alex Haley

[kevinolzak · 10/10 · 15 January 2017]

Chapter six finds Alex Haley (Damon Evans) just out of high school, his father's plans for him to continue with college foiled by his joining the Coast Guard because he wants to see more of the world. Simon Haley (Dorian Harewood) has a second wife, Zenitha (Diahann Carroll), who supports her stepson more than her husband does, though Alex chooses to remember only the late Bertha as his mother. Once again race relations are strained during wartime, but Alex soon discovers he has a talent for choosing the right words when it comes to forging love letters for fellow sailors like Scotty (John Hancock). This is the time that he meets pretty Nan Branch (Debbie Allen) at a church social, who becomes his bride before war's end. Alex encounters difficulty learning how to be a writer under Commander Robert Munroe (Andy Griffith), his magazine articles usually returned without being published. His determination in his chosen field leaves less and less time for his wife and children, until Nan finally decides to take them away after a bitterly disappointing Christmas, left standing by himself to feel even more like a failure. James Earl Jones takes the role of Haley for the concluding chapter.