Alex Haley | |
|---|---|
 Haley in 1980 | |
| Born | Alexander Murray Palmer Haley (1921-08-11)August 11, 1921 Ithaca, New York, U.S.[1] |
| Died | February 10, 1992(1992-02-10) (aged 70) Seattle, Washington, U.S. |
| Occupation | Coast Guardsman, writer |
| Years active | 1939–1992 |
| Spouse | [2] |
| Children | Lydia, William Alex, Dolores, and Alexander Murray Palmer Jr. |
| Relatives | Simon Haley (father) George W. Haley (brother) |
| Military service | |
| Allegiance | United States |
| Branch | United States Coast Guard |
| Years of service | 1939–1959 |
| Rank | Chief Petty Officer |
Alexander Murray Palmer Haley (August 11, 1921 – February 10, 1992)[1] was an American writer and the author of the 1976 bookRoots: The Saga of an American Family.ABC adapted the book as atelevision miniseries of the same name and aired it in 1977 to a record-breaking audience of 130 million viewers. In the United States, the book and miniseries raised the public awareness of black American history and inspired a broad interest ingenealogy and family history.[3]
Haley's first book wasThe Autobiography of Malcolm X, published in 1965, a collaboration through numerous lengthy interviews withMalcolm X.[4][5][6]
He was working on a second family history novel at his death. Haley had requested thatDavid Stevens, a screenwriter, complete it; the book was published asQueen: The Story of an American Family. It was adapted as a miniseries,Alex Haley's Queen, broadcast in 1993.[7]
Alex Haley was born inIthaca, New York, on August 11, 1921, and was the eldest of three brothers (the other two beingGeorge and Julius) and a half-sister (from his father's second marriage). Haley lived with his family inHenning, Tennessee, before returning to Ithaca with his family when he was five years old. Haley's father wasSimon Haley, a professor of agriculture atAlabama A&M University, and his mother was Bertha George Haley (née Palmer), who had grown up in Henning. The family hadMandinka, other African,Cherokee,Scottish, andScottish-Irish roots.[8][9][10][11] The younger Haley always spoke proudly of his father and the obstacles of racism he had overcome.
Like his father, Alex Haley was enrolled atAlcorn State University, a historically black college in Mississippi and, a year later, enrolled atElizabeth City State College, also historically black, in Elizabeth City,North Carolina. The following year, he withdrew from college. His father felt that Alex needed discipline and growth, and convinced him to enlist in the military. On May 24, 1939, Alex Haley began what was to become a 20-year career in theUnited States Coast Guard.[12]
Haley traced back his maternal ancestry, through genealogical research, toJufureh, inThe Gambia.[13]
Haley enlisted as a mess attendant. Later he was promoted to the rate ofpetty officer third-class in therating ofsteward, one of the few ratings open to black personnel at that time.[14] It was during his service in thePacific theater of operations that Haley taught himself the craft of writing stories. During his enlistment other sailors often paid him to write love letters to their girlfriends. He said that the greatest enemy he and his crew faced during their long voyages was not the Japanese forces but rather boredom.[12]
AfterWorld War II, Haley petitioned the U.S. Coast Guard to allow him to transfer into the field of journalism. By 1949 he had become apetty officer first-class in the rating of a journalist. He later advanced tochief petty officer and held this rank until his retirement from the Coast Guard in 1959. He was the first chief journalist in the Coast Guard, the rating having been expressly created for him in recognition of his literary ability.[12]
Haley's awards and decorations from the Coast Guard include theCoast Guard Good Conduct Medal (6 awards represented by 1 silver and 1 bronzeservice star),American Defense Service Medal (with"Sea" clasp),American Campaign Medal,Asiatic-Pacific Campaign Medal,European-African-Middle Eastern Campaign Medal,World War II Victory Medal,Korean Service Medal,National Defense Service Medal,United Nations Service Medal, and theCoast Guard Expert Marksmanship Medal.[12] The Republic of Korea awarded him the War Service Medal, ten years after he died. The United States Coast Guard dedicated the cutter formerly known as USSEdenton to Haley by recommissioning it asUSCGC Alex Haley in July 1999. The cutter currently serves fromKodiak, Alaska.
After retiring from the U.S. Coast Guard, Haley began another phase of his career in journalism. He eventually became a senior editor forReader's Digest magazine. Haley wrote an article for the magazine about his brother George's struggles to succeed as one of the first black students at a Southern law school.
Haley conducted the first interview forPlayboy magazine. Haley elicited candid comments from jazz musicianMiles Davis about his thoughts and feelings on racism in an interview he had started, but not finished, forShow Business Illustrated, another magazine created byPlayboy founderHugh Hefner that folded in early 1962. Haley completed the interview and it appeared inPlayboy's September 1962 issue.[15] That interview set the tone for what became a significant feature of the magazine. Rev.Martin Luther King Jr.'sPlayboy Interview with Haley was the longest he ever granted to any publication.[16]
Throughout the 1960s, Haley was responsible for some of the magazine's most notable interviews, including one withGeorge Lincoln Rockwell, leader of theAmerican Nazi Party. He agreed to meet with Haley only after gaining assurance from the writer that he was not Jewish. Haley remained professional during the interview, although Rockwell kept a handgun on the table throughout it. (The interview was recreated inRoots: The Next Generations, withJames Earl Jones as Haley andMarlon Brando as Rockwell.)[17] Haley also interviewedMuhammad Ali, who spoke about changing his name from Cassius Clay. Other interviews includeJack Ruby's defense attorneyMelvin Belli, entertainerSammy Davis Jr., football playerJim Brown, TV hostJohnny Carson, and music producerQuincy Jones.
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The Autobiography of Malcolm X, published in 1965, was Haley's first book.[18] It describes the trajectory of Malcolm X's life from street criminal to national spokesman for theNation of Islam to his conversion toSunni Islam. It also outlines Malcolm X's philosophy ofblack pride,black nationalism, andpan-Africanism. Haley wrote an epilogue to the book summarizing the end of Malcolm X's life, includinghis assassination in New York'sAudubon Ballroom.
HaleyghostwroteThe Autobiography of Malcolm X based on more than 50 in-depth interviews he conducted with Malcolm X between 1963 and Malcolm X's February 1965 assassination.[19] The two men had first met in 1960 when Haley wrote an article about the Nation of Islam forReader's Digest. They met again when Haley interviewed Malcolm X forPlayboy.[19]
The initial interviews for the autobiography frustrated Haley. Rather than discussing his own life, Malcolm X spoke aboutElijah Muhammad, the leader of the Nation of Islam; he became angry about Haley's reminders that the book was supposed to be about Malcolm X. After several meetings, Haley asked Malcolm X to tell him something about his mother. That question drew Malcolm X into recounting his life story.[19][20]
The Autobiography of Malcolm X has been a consistent best-seller since its 1965 publication.[21]The New York Times reported that six million copies of the book had sold by 1977.[5] In 1998,Time magazine rankedThe Autobiography of Malcolm X as one of the 10 most influential nonfiction books of the 20th century.[22]
In 1966, Haley received theAnisfield-Wolf Book Award forThe Autobiography of Malcolm X.[23]
In 1973, Haley wrote his only screenplay,Super Fly T.N.T. The film starred and was directed byRon O'Neal.
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In 1976, Haley publishedRoots: The Saga of an American Family, a novel based on his family's history, going back to slavery days. It started with the story ofKunta Kinte, who was kidnapped inThe Gambia in 1767 and transported to theProvince of Maryland to be sold as aslave. Haley claimed to be a seventh-generation descendant of Kunta Kinte, and his work on the novel involved twelve years of research, intercontinental travel, and writing. He went to the village ofJuffure, where Kunta Kinte grew up and listened to a tribal historian (griot) tell the story of Kinte's capture.[1] Haley also traced the records of the ship,The Lord Ligonier, which he said carried his ancestor to the Americas.[24]
Haley stated that the most emotional moment of his life occurred on September 29, 1967, when he stood at the site inAnnapolis, Maryland, where his ancestor had arrived from Africa in chains exactly 200 years before. A memorial depicting Haley reading a story to young children gathered at his feet has since been erected in the center of Annapolis.[25]
Roots was eventually published in 37 languages. Haley won aspecial Pulitzer Prize for the work in 1977.[26] The same year,Roots was adapted as a populartelevision miniseries of the same name byABC. The serial reached a record-breaking 130 million viewers.Roots emphasized that black Americans have a long history and that not all of that history is necessarily lost, as many believed. Its popularity also sparked a greatly increased public interest ingenealogy.[1][3]
In 1979, ABC aired the sequel miniseries,Roots: The Next Generations, which continued the story of Kunta Kinte's descendants. It concluded with Haley's travel to Juffure. Haley was portrayed at different ages byKristoff St. John,The Jeffersons actorDamon Evans, andTony Award winnerJames Earl Jones. In 2016,History aired aremake of the original miniseries. Haley appeared briefly, portrayed by Tony Award-winnerLaurence Fishburne.
Haley was briefly a "writer in residence" atHamilton College inClinton, New York, where he began writingRoots. He enjoyed spending time at a local bistro called the Savoy in nearbyRome, where he would sometimes pass the time listening to the piano player. Today, there is a special table in honor of Haley at the Savoy, and a painting of Haley writingRoots on a yellow legal tablet.[27]
Roots faced two lawsuits that charged plagiarism and copyright infringement. The lawsuit brought byMargaret Walker was dismissed, butHarold Courlander's suit was successful. Courlander's novelThe African describes an African boy who is captured by slave traders, follows him across the Atlantic on a slave ship, and describes his attempts to hold on to his African traditions on a plantation in America. Haley admitted that some passages fromThe African had made it intoRoots, settling the case out of court in 1978 and paying Courlander $650,000 (equivalent to $3,133,597 in 2024).[28][29] In his biography of Haley, the academic Robert J. Norrell uses court transcripts and eyewitness testimony to show the judge in this trial, Nixon-appointeeRobert Ward, not only lacked experience but was hostile to the defendant. According to an anonymous source, Judge Ward made it clear he thought Haley incapable of writingRoots at all.[30]
Genealogists have also disputed Haley's research and conclusions inRoots. The Gambiangriot turned out not to be a realgriot, and the story of Kunta Kinte appears to have been a case ofcircular reporting, in which Haley's own words were repeated back to him.[31][32] None of the written records in Virginia and North Carolina line up with theRoots story until after the Civil War. Some elements of Haley's family story can be found in the written records, but with a different genealogy than what he described inRoots.[33]
Haley and his work have been excluded from theNorton Anthology of African-American Literature, despite his status as the United States' best-selling black author.Harvard University professorHenry Louis Gates Jr., one of the anthology's general editors, has denied that the controversies surrounding Haley's works are the reason for this exclusion. In 1998, Gates acknowledged the doubts surrounding Haley's claims aboutRoots, saying, "Most of us feel it's highly unlikely that Alex actually found the village whence his ancestors sprang.Roots is a work of the imagination rather than strict historical scholarship."[34]
In 2023,Jonathan Eig suggested that Haley had made a number of fabrications in his 1965Playboy interview withMartin Luther King Jr., including embellishing his criticisms of Malcolm X.[35]
Early in the 1980s, Haley worked withthe Walt Disney Company to develop anEquatorial Africa pavilion for itsEpcot Center theme park. Haley appeared on aCBS broadcast of Epcot Center's opening day celebration, discussing the plans and exhibiting concept art with hostDanny Kaye. Ultimately, the pavilion was not built due to political and financial issues.[36]
Late in the 1970s, Haley had begun working on a second historical novel based on another branch of his family, traced through his grandmother Queen; she was the daughter of a black slave woman and her white master.
He did not finish the novel before dying inSeattle, Washington, of a heart attack on February 10, 1992.[37] He was buried beside his childhood home in Henning, Tennessee.[38]
At his request, the novel was finished byDavid Stevens and was published asAlex Haley's Queen in 1993. Earlier the same year, it was adapted as aminiseries of the same name.[39][40]
Late in Haley's life he had acquired a small farm inClinton, Tennessee, although at the time it had aNorris, Tennessee address. The farm is a few miles from theMuseum of Appalachia, and Haley lived there until his death. After he died, the property was sold to theChildren's Defense Fund (CDF), which calls it the Alex Haley Farm. The nonprofit organization uses the farm as a national training center and retreat site. An abandonedbarn on the farm property was rebuilt as a traditionalcantilevered barn, using a design by architectMaya Lin. The building now serves as a library for the CDF.[41]
TheUniversity of Tennessee LibrariesSpecial Collections maintains a collection of Alex Haley's personal papers. The works contain notes, outlines, bibliographies, research, and legal papers documenting Haley'sRoots through 1977. Of particular interest are the items showing Harold Courlander's lawsuit against Haley,Doubleday & Company, and various affiliated groups.[50]Portions of Alex Haley's personal collection is also located at theAfrican-American Research Library and Cultural Center at theSpecial Collections and Archives inFort Lauderdale, Florida.[51] TheKeeper of the Word Foundation inDetroit, Michigan maintains Alex Haley's Coast Guard notes, writings, and love letter notes that developed Haley's writings. Along with the digital unpublishedAutobiography of Malcolm X andEpilogue, omitted introduction and chapters, outline, letters, handwritten notes, Haley's complete interviews of Malcolm X's, poetry and edited notes, and digital rights.[citation needed]
In the city dock section of Annapolis, Maryland, there is a memorial to mark the arrival location of Kunta Kinte in 1767. The monument, dedicated on June 12, 2002, also celebrates the preservation ofAfrican-American heritage and family history.[52]
In May 1993, the Alex Haley Memorial Project inIthaca, New York created a memorial pocket park at Alex Haley's birthplace in town, 212 Cascadilla Street; the park contains a carved granite marker and a hand-wrought iron bench with individual iron leaves made by community members.[53] Funded by the Legacy Foundation of Tompkins County, the Alex Haley Memorial Project members also acquired a New York Historical Marker for the site, placed outside the 212 Cascadilla Street home in August 2020.[54] Located nearby at 408 North Albany Street is the Alex Haley Municipal Pool, which also opened in 1993, immediately across the street from theGreater Ithaca Activities Center (GIAC), one of the area's prominent community centers.
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