In all of us there is a hunger, marrow-deep, to know our heritage- to know who we are and where we have come from. Without this enriching knowledge, … - Alex Haley

In every conceivable manner, the family is link to our past, bridge to our future.

He wondered if she also knew how strange and sad he found it to hear her talking — as so many others did — about 'usn's',' and acting as if se owned the plantation she lived on instead of the other way around.

His learning to speak the toubob tongue, he realized, had played a big part in it. In this everyday talking, he seldom even thought of Mandinka words any more, excepting those few that for some reason his mind still clung to. Indeed, by now — Kunta grimly faced it — he even thought in the toubob tongue. In countless things he did as well as said and thought, his Mandinka ways had slowly been replaced by those of the blacks he had been among. The only thing in which he felt he could take some small pride was that in twenty rains he had never touched the meat of the swine.