When I read Centennial, by James A. Michener, I remember thinking, I’d like to write a book like that someday! When I read Roots: The Saga of an American Family, by Alex Haley, I thought, I’d like to write a book like that someday!
In 1996, my sister and I published three Morrison genealogy books. Talk about something being a labor of love! I have been interested in my family’s history all of my adult life, so I was drawn to Roots: The Saga of an American Family, by Alex Haley, for its writing and its sense of genealogy.
Alex Haley’s Life Before Roots
Today would have been Alex Haley’s 104th birthday.
Haley was born in Ithaca, New York. He lived in Henning, Tennessee, until the age of five, when his family moved back to Ithaca. His father was a professor of agriculture at Alabama A&M University. His mother was from Henning.
After two years of college, Alex Haley joined the U.S. Coast Guard. He had a 20-years career in that branch of the military. His reputation as a self-taught writer spread among his fellow service members. They often asked Haley to compose love letters for their sweethearts.
After retiring from the Coast Guard, Haley pursued life as a writer. He served as a senior editor for Reader’s Digest magazine. Throughout the 1960s, Haley conducted interviews with famous people for Playboy magazine. It was as a writer for Playboy that he interviewed Muhammad Ali; Sammy Davis, Jr.; Jim Brown; Johnny Carson; Quincy Jones; and Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr.
It was Haley who interviewed George Lincoln Rockwell for Playboy. Rockwell was the leader of the American Nazi Party, and he kept a gun on the table throughout Haley’s interview.
When Haley was writing an article about the Nation of Islam for Reader’s Digest, he met Malcolm X. The two met again was Haley interviewed him for Playboy. Haley’s first book was The Autobiography of Malcolm X, published in 1965.
Roots: The Saga of an American Family
Haley published Roots: The Saga of an American Family in 1976. It is a noel based on Haley’s genealogy. He traced his mother’s ancestry back to The Gambia. Haley was a seventh-generation descendant of Kunta Kinte, a young black man kidnapped in The Gambia in 1767 and brought to Maryland to be sold as a slave.
It took Haley 12 years to do the research for Roots: The Saga of an American Family. He traveled to The Gambia and heard stories of Kunta Kinte’s capture. He went to Annapolis, Maryland, and had the emotional experience of standing where his ancestor had been taken from a slave ship.
It is said that Haley enjoyed sitting at the Savoy (a bistro) in Rome to listen to the piano music and write Roots on a yellow legal tablet. A painting of Haley writing on his legal pad hangs at a special table at the Savoy in honor of the time he spent there and the great work of literature he partially wrote there.
The writing of Roots earned Haley a special Pulitzer Prize in 1977. That was the same year that ABC adapted the book into a miniseries that drew a record-breaking audience of 130 million viewers.
Misgivings about Haley’s research
Some genealogists have disputed Haley’s genealogical research and the validity of his story of Kunta Kinte.
Henry Louis Gates, Jr. is quoted as 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.”
Plagiarism and Copyright Infringement
Sadly, Haley was successfully sued for plagiarism and copyright infringement by Harold Courlander. Courlander accused Haley of taking passages from his book, The African, and using them in Roots. The case was settled out of court in 1978 and Courlander was awarded $650,000. Haley’s biographer, Robert J. Norrell, maintains that Judge Robert Ward was hostile to Haley and did not think Haley was capable of writing Roots.
Posthumus novel
At the time of his death in 1992, Haley was writing a novel based on another branch of his family. At his request, David Stevens completed the novel, Alex Haley’s Queen, in 1993 and it was adapted as a television miniseries by that name.
Haley’s property
Haley lived on a farm at Clinton, Tennessee during his last years. After his death, the Children’s Defense Fund purchase the property and it is used as a national training center and retreat.
In conclusion
I had forgotten the controversies surrounding Alex Haley after his acclaim for Roots: The Saga of an American Family until I started doing research for writing this blog post.
Nevertheless, that does not change the fact that I was inspired by reading Roots and watching it’s TV adaptation. Along with James A. Michener’s Centennial, it was Roots that planted the seed in my head that I might write books someday.
Hurricane Helene Weekly Update
As of Friday, of the 1,457 roads that were closed in western North Carolina last September due to Hurricane Helene, 35 were closed, which is one more than the number reported the week before. The NC Department of Transportation reports 39 roads have just partial access, which is a decrease of one road since the previous Friday.
Great Smoky Mountains National Park Alert Update
On Saturday, August 2, US-441/Newfound Gap Road – the only road that crosses the entire Great Smoky Mountains National Park from Cherokee, North Carolina to Gatlinburg, Tennessee, was closed due to heavy rainfall causing the undercutting of a section of the road in Tennessee by Walker Prong Camp Creek between Mile Marker 12 and Mile Marker 13.
By the next day, a portion of Newfound Gap Road from near Cherokee, North Carolina into the park reopened; however, the National Park Service announced on Friday that the Tennessee portion of Newfound Gap Road will remain closed until early October so repairs can be made at the site of the washout/landslide.
The stated detour route is I-40, which is still just two lanes and 35 mph due to the massive damage done last September by Hurricane Helene.
This road closure in the most-visited park in the United States is yet another blow to the tourism-dependent economy of the southern Appalachian Mountains.
Janet
Janet's Writing Blog 
This was a very interesting post reference the life and work of this great writer Janet. Of course I had heard of Roots but having never read the book or watched the mini-series I knew nothing about it or that it was somewhat autobiographical. I truly admire your informative posts from which I learn so much. All the best and I hope the weather in your part of the world has returned to August normal. Yesterday a 6,19 earthquake rocked a town close to us. We only felt a slight tremor, but the city of the epicentre was hit hard with several buildings destroyed and so far one reported death. Thank God here nothing happened. All the best and a great week to you Janet.
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I remember seeing the mini series and loving it. Great historical recap, Janet. Somehow I never realized that this all took place in Maryland and ‘assumed’ it was some place further south. Most of us never stop learning and growing. Those that don’t….
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I’m glad to hear that you are all right! I saw online late las night that there had been an earthquake in Turkey and I hoped very much that there was no damage where you are on holiday. It seems we are hearing about earthquakes somewhere every day since the big one in Russia. On the home front, Trump has put Washington, DC police under federal control. I guess that’s what they get for trying to stop his January 6, 2021, attempted coup. He’s deploying the National Guard to DC and says he’ll bring in the military if needed. He said officers will be authorized to “do whatever the hell they want.” He says he’s going to “Make Washington beautiful again.” He says cities like NYC, Los Angeles, and Chicago are next if they don’t clean up their acts. His news conference has been going on for more than an hour and is his typical ramblings and lies. Another day… another Trump-induced drama.
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I had forgotten the Maryland part of the story until I was researching Haley for the post. It is indeed interesting how states outside The South have been able to whitewash their history. I read an eye-opening book a few years ago: Inheriting the Trade: A Northern Family confronts Its Legacy as the Largest Slave-Trading Dynasty in U.S. History, by Thomas Norman DeWolf. The author was astounded to discover that he was related to the largest slave-trading family in U.S. History — the DeWolfs of Rhode Island and New England. President Jefferson allowed U.S. Senator James DeWolf of RI to continue to trade in slaves after it was outlawed. There were slaves in the North for over 200 years, and the majority of the slave traders were actually Northerners. The book jacket says, “Remarkably, half of all North American voyages involved in the slave trade originated in Rhode Island, and all the northern states benefited.” The North, of course, benefited from the rum trade that was slave-based and from the slaves growing cotton in the South. Remarkable how the North has been able to wash its hands of the slave trade. I was so blown away by the book that I bought a copy.
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Fascinating history, Janet. I didn’t know that. I was reading about the mixed track record of Pennsylvania which early on outlawed slavery but then had a mixed track record when slave hunters came in search of run away slaves. Sometimes free Blacks were turned over to the slave hunters, even though they had never been slaves. A lot of abolitionist groups originated from Pennsylvania, but that did not necessarily help the Blacks (free or slave) who lived there. They had a law that if a slave stayed in Pennsylvania X amount of time, they became free, but how that was applied seems to be very unevenly handed.
https://scholarship.law.wm.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=4025&context=wmlr
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That book opened my eyes to a lot of things we were never taught in history class! That’s interesting what you said about the slave hunters. I’m sure more of that went on than we’ll ever know — and few of us know anything about it because history textbooks conveniently omitted things like that. Thank you for the William & Mary Law School link.
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My pleasure, I came across it at my volunteer job while cataloging at the Jefferson Library at Monticello
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Incredible! I know I have said that so many times but when I hear these things it’s the first word that comes to mind! Stay well Janet, these things, unbelievable as they are, and disturbing, cannot shake your well-being and your peace in God. Take good care and all the best. Thankfully here the earth his giving us peace and we are so grateful. That is my first thought every morning and my last thought every night. If I didn’t have faith I don’t know what I would do. Blessings Janet.
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With your background, I knew you would be interested, in case you hadn’t heard today’s news from Washington. The reports are that crime is at a 30-year low in D.C., so POTUS had to declare a bogus emergency. 800 National Guard troops to be deployed and FBI agents are to be pulled from their normal work to go on patrols with the police on the streets. Unprecedented. You can’t make this stuff up! POTUS’s demeanor today was different. He seemed to be on some kind of high… I guess from all his power grabbing… and he’s on a high over his planned meeting with Putin in Alaska on Friday. Putin will continue to play him like a fiddle. All he needs to do is compliment Trump and he will be eating out of Putin’s hand. I feel like I live at the circus. I wish us all to have peace. At least I know where I’m going when I die, and that gives me the ultimate peace of mind. There will be no politics there.
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I’m a glutton for punishment, so I wrote my Congressman on Friday about the starvation in Gaza. Just received his typical response: Hamas started the war. Israel has a right to defend itself. He proudly supports the U.S. supporting Israel. Yadadadadada.
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Party line toed. ✔️
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Amen Janet, no politics there. Taking over cities. Is he creating a citadel surrounded by militia and FBI? Unbelievable!
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It seems a poor use of FBI agents to have them patrol the streets of any city alongside city police and National Guard troops. What is this country coming to? Heaven help us if Trump has to deal with a real emergency in the next 42 months. Ugh! 42 more months of this madness! And yet, life goes on as I try to lead a normal life in spite of the daily distractions.
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I agree Janet. Total madness!
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Thanks for this information on Alex Haley, Janet. So glad he inspired you to write about your family.
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Thank you, Rebecca. I’m glad, too!
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