History Channel

Reading For Roots

HISTORY reimaged the landmark series ROOTS, telling the powerful story of an enslaved African American family’s struggle to preserve their name and identity. To honor this groundbreaking story, we created a campaign to reconnect modern African American families with their ancestors.

Services - Social, Digital, Broadcast

#1

Series Premiere

131mm

Social Impressions

All Projects

HISTORY’s revamped ROOTS series vividly portrays the struggle for identity of an enslaved African family. Teaming up with the Freedman’s Bureau Project, we introduced Reading for ROOTS. This campaign enlisted volunteers to transcribe thousands of Civil War-era documents, safeguarding the identities and stories of enslaved individuals. In a mere three weeks, over 14,000 names were transcribed, potentially enabling over 22 million African Americans to trace their ancestry.

As participants found names, dates, and other information in these hand-written records, they were digitized and entered into a searchable database. In just three weeks, our campaign helped the Freedmen’s Bureau Project reach its goal by transcribing over 14,000 names. Those names give a potential 22 million African Americans a chance to trace their roots.

Co.Lab Creative - History Channel - Reading For Roots

VIEW NOW

HISTORY reimaged the landmark series ROOTS, telling the powerful story of an enslaved African American family’s struggle to preserve their name and identity. To honor this groundbreaking story, we created a campaign to reconnect modern African American families with their ancestors. We partnered with the Freedman’s Bureau Project to launch Reading for ROOTS, a multi-platform campaign that called upon the public to help digitally transcribe thousands of aging Civil-War era documents, thereby saving the names and histories of enslaved people from disappearing forever.