John Allen Amos Jr. is an American actor. He is best known for his role as the adult Kunta Kinte in the landmark miniseries Roots and for portraying James Evans Sr. on the CBS television series Good Times. Amos' other television work includes The Mary Tyler Moore Show, a recurring role as Admiral Percy Fitzwallace on The West Wing, and the role of Washington, DC Mayor Ethan Baker in the series The District. Amos has appeared on Broadway and in numerous films in his five-decade career.
Amos at "Their Voices, Their Stories - Black Veterans Who Served on Iwo Jima", March 2011.
On Good Times (1974), L–R: Ralph Carter, BernNadette Stanis, Jimmie Walker, Esther Rolle, and John Amos
John Amos in 2000
Kunta Kinte is a fictional character in the 1976 novel Roots: The Saga of an American Family by American author Alex Haley. Kunta Kinte was based on one of Haley's ancestors, a Gambian man who was born around 1750, enslaved, and taken to America where he died around 1822. Haley said that his account of Kunta's life in Roots is a mixture of fact and fiction.
LeVar Burton as Kunta Kinte in the TV miniseries Roots
Behold, a 1990 statue by Patrick Morelli depicting Kinte, was dedicated to Martin Luther King Jr. and stands in front of King's Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta.