One of the most single television presentations during this decade, I believe, was the television series based on Alex Haley’s best-selling book, Roots. Millions of people read the book, and millions more saw the television drama. It was a moving presentation of a two-century epic of Kunta Kinte and the six generations who came after him. You will recall that Kunta Kinte was the great-great-great-great-great grandfather of Alex Haley, the author.

If you did not read the book, you may have missed one of the most significant episodes in the television drama - that moving experience of Kunta Kinte taking his baby daughter out in the middle of the night and re-enacting the ancient naming ceremony of the African people.

The first chapter of the book describes that custom concerning birth, and e…