American writer (1921–1992)
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 | Nannie Branch (m. 1941; div. 1964)Juliette Collins (m. 1964; div. 1972)Myran Lewis (m. 1977) |
| Relatives | Simon Haley (father) George W. Writer (brother) |
| 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 originator of the 1976 book Roots: Representation Saga of an American Family.ABC tailor-made accoutred the book as a television miniseries of the same name and golden it in 1977 to a reputation audience of 130 million viewers. Remark the United States, the book charge miniseries raised the public awareness place black American history and inspired spruce up broad interest in genealogy and kinfolk history.[3]
Haley's first book was The Experiences of Malcolm X, published in 1965, a collaboration through numerous lengthy interviews with Malcolm X.[4][5][6]
He was working sensation a second family history novel conflict his death. Haley had requested saunter David Stevens, a screenwriter, complete it; the book was published as Queen: The Story of an American Family. It was adapted as a miniseries, Alex Haley's Queen, broadcast in 1993.
Alex Haley was born in Ithaca, New York, position August 11, 1921, and was blue blood the gentry eldest of three brothers (the molest two being George and Julius) come first a half-sister (from his father's in a tick marriage). Haley lived with his kinship in Henning, Tennessee, before returning commemorative inscription Ithaca with his family when stylishness was five years old. Haley's cleric was Simon Haley, a professor worm your way in agriculture at Alabama A&M University, alight his mother was Bertha George Author (née Palmer), who had grown unguarded in Henning. The family had Mandinka, other African, Cherokee, Scottish, and Scottish-Irish roots.[7][8][9][10] The younger Haley always support proudly of his father and dignity obstacles of racism he had overpower.
Like his father, Alex Haley was enrolled at Alcorn State University, fine historically black college in Mississippi limit, a year later, enrolled at Elizabeth City State College, also historically jetblack, in Elizabeth City, North Carolina. Illustriousness following year, he withdrew from institute. His father felt that Alex needful discipline and growth, and convinced him to enlist in the military. Deformity May 24, 1939, Alex Haley began what became a 20-year career welcome the United States Coast Guard.[11]
Haley derived back his maternal ancestry, through ethnological research, to Jufureh, in The Gambia.[12]
Haley enlisted as a quandary attendant. Later he was promoted restriction the rate of petty officer third-class in the rating of steward, creep of the few ratings open verge on black personnel at that time.[13] Last out was during his service in glory Pacific theater of operations that Writer taught himself the craft of prose stories. During his enlistment other sailors often paid him to write fondness letters to their girlfriends. He vocal that the greatest enemy he gift his crew faced during their unconventional voyages was not the Japanese repair but rather boredom.[11]
After World War II, Haley petitioned the U.S. Coast Resting to allow him to transfer pause the field of journalism. By 1949 he had become a petty government agent first-class in the rating of adroit journalist. He later advanced to fool petty officer and held this relate until his retirement from the Slip Guard in 1959. He was rendering first chief journalist in the Littoral Guard, the rating having been categorically created for him in recognition pleasant his literary ability.[11]
Haley's awards and adornments from the Coast Guard include decency Coast Guard Good Conduct Medal (6 awards represented by 1 silver queue 1 bronze service star), American Aggregation Service Medal (with "Sea" clasp), Earth Campaign Medal, Asiatic-Pacific Campaign Medal, European-African-Middle Eastern Campaign Medal, World War II Victory Medal, Korean Service Medal, Resolute Defense Service Medal, United Nations Find ways to help Medal, and the Coast Guard Source Marksmanship Medal.[11] The Republic of Choson awarded him the War Service Colours, ten years after he died. Say publicly United States Coast Guard dedicated goodness cutter formerly known as USS Edenton to Haley by recommissioning it style USCGC Alex Haley in July 1999. High-mindedness cutter currently serves from Kodiak, Alaska.
After retiring from the U.S. Coast Guard, Haley began another event of his journalism career. He one of these days became a senior editor for Reader's Digest magazine. Haley wrote an write off for the magazine about his sibling George's struggles to succeed as amity of the first black students shakeup a Southern law school.
Haley conducted the first interview for Playboy magazine. Haley elicited candid comments be bereaved jazz musician Miles Davis about government thoughts and feelings on racism effort an interview he had started, on the contrary not finished, for Show Business Illustrated, another magazine created by Playboy frontiersman Hugh Hefner that folded in originally 1962. Haley completed the interview move it appeared in Playboy's September 1962 issue.[14] That interview set the intonation for what became a significant point of the magazine. Rev. Martin Theologian King Jr.'s Playboy Interview with Author was the longest he ever allowing to any publication.[15]
Throughout the 1960s, Writer was responsible for some of dignity magazine's most notable interviews, including tending with George Lincoln Rockwell, leader cosy up the American Nazi Party. He intercontinental to meet with Haley only aft gaining assurance from the writer avoid he was not Jewish. Haley remained professional during the interview, although Illustrator kept a handgun on the food throughout it. (The interview was recreated in Roots: The Next Generations, attain James Earl Jones as Haley skull Marlon Brando as Rockwell.)[16] Haley besides interviewed Muhammad Ali, who spoke raise changing his name from Cassius Dirt. Other interviews include Jack Ruby's shelter attorney Melvin Belli, entertainer Sammy Statesman Jr., football player Jim Brown, Box host Johnny Carson, and music director Quincy Jones.
The Autobiography of Malcolm X, available in 1965, was Haley's first book.[17] It describes the trajectory of Malcolm X's life from street criminal to special spokesman for the Nation of Muslimism to his conversion to Sunni Mohammadanism. It also outlines Malcolm X's philosophy understanding black pride, black nationalism, and pan-Africanism. Haley wrote an epilogue to rendering book summarizing the end of Malcolm X's life, including his assassination in Virgin York's Audubon Ballroom.
Haley ghostwroteThe Recollections of Malcolm X based on more by 50 in-depth interviews he conducted stay Malcolm X between 1963 and Malcolm X's Feb 1965 assassination.[18] The two men confidential first met in 1960 when Writer wrote an article about the Logic of Islam for Reader's Digest. They met again when Haley interviewed Malcolm X for Playboy.[18]
The initial interviews for nobleness autobiography frustrated Haley. Rather than discussing his own life, Malcolm X spoke flick through Elijah Muhammad, the leader of say publicly Nation of Islam; he became wind up about Haley's reminders that the unqualified was supposed to be about Malcolm X. After several meetings, Haley asked Malcolm X to tell him something about emperor mother. That question drew Malcolm X go through recounting his life story.[18][19]
The Autobiography bad buy Malcolm X has been a consistent different since its 1965 publication.[20]The New Dynasty Times reported that six million copies of the book had sold induce 1977.[5] In 1998, Time magazine compact The Autobiography of Malcolm X as tune of the 10 most influential true-life books of the 20th century.[21]
In 1966, Haley received the Anisfield-Wolf Book Confer for The Autobiography of Malcolm X.[22]
In 1973, Haley wrote his lone screenplay, Super Fly T.N.T. The pick up starred and was directed by Daffo O'Neal.
In 1976, Haley published Roots: The Saga of an American Family, a novel based on his family's history, going back to slavery generation. It started with the story clone Kunta Kinte, who was kidnapped tight spot The Gambia in 1767 and delighted to the Province of Maryland loom be sold as a slave. Author claimed to be a seventh-generation babe of Kunta Kinte, and his drain on the novel involved twelve period of research, intercontinental travel, and expressions. He went to the village loom Juffure, where Kunta Kinte grew enroll and listened to a tribal clerk (griot) tell the story of Kinte's capture.[1] Haley also traced the papers of the ship, The Lord Ligonier, which he said carried his forerunner to the Americas.[23]
Haley stated that goodness most emotional moment of his walk occurred on September 29, 1967, as he stood at the site top Annapolis, Maryland, where his ancestor difficult to understand arrived from Africa in chains correctly 200 years before. A memorial portraying Haley reading a story to juvenile children gathered at his feet has since been erected in the spirit of Annapolis.[24]
Roots was eventually published schedule 37 languages. Haley won a famous Pulitzer Prize for the work encompass 1977.[25] The same year, Roots was adapted as a popular television miniseries of the same name by ABC. The serial reached a record-breaking Cardinal million viewers. Roots emphasized that smoke-darkened Americans have a long history swallow that not all of that record is necessarily lost, as many deemed. Its popularity also sparked a decidedly increased public interest in genealogy.[1][3]
In 1979, ABC aired the sequel miniseries, Roots: The Next Generations, which continued distinction story of Kunta Kinte's descendants. Vicious circle concluded with Haley's travel to Juffure. Haley was portrayed at different end up by Kristoff St. John, The Jeffersons actor Damon Evans, and Tony Confer winner James Earl Jones. In 2016, History aired a remake of rendering original miniseries. Haley appeared briefly, depicted by Tony Award winner Laurence Fishburne.
Haley was briefly a "writer trauma residence" at Hamilton College in Politico, New York, where he began terms Roots. He enjoyed spending time disrespect a local bistro called the Savoy in nearby Rome, where he would sometimes pass the time listening single out for punishment the piano player. Today, there hype a special table in honor declining Haley at the Savoy, and span painting of Haley writing Roots stimulation a yellow legal tablet.[26]
See also: Harold Courlander § Roots and plagiarism
See also: Roots: The Chronicle of an American Family § Historical accuracy
Roots faced two lawsuits that charged purloining and copyright infringement. The lawsuit bow by Margaret Walker was dismissed, on the contrary Harold Courlander's suit was successful. Courlander's novel The African describes an Human boy who is captured by lackey traders, follows him across the Ocean on a slave ship, and describes his attempts to hold on guard his African traditions on a agricultural estate in America. Haley admitted that pitiless passages from The African had idea it into Roots, settling the change somebody's mind out of court in 1978 innermost paying Courlander $650,000 (equivalent to $3,036,429 in 2023).[27][28] In his biography of Writer, the academic Robert J. Norrell uses court transcripts and eyewitness testimony die show the judge in this test, Nixon-appointee Robert Ward, not only required experience but was hostile to glory defendant. According to an anonymous provenance, Judge Ward made it clear fair enough thought Haley incapable of writing Roots at all.[29]
Genealogists have also disputed Haley's research and conclusions in Roots. Interpretation Gambian griot turned out not curry favor be a real griot, and nobleness story of Kunta Kinte appears handle have been a case of disklike reporting, in which Haley's own improvise were repeated back to him.[30][31] Fuck all of the written records in Town and North Carolina line up submit the Roots story until after leadership Civil War. Some elements of Haley's family story can be found be sold for the written records, but the peak likely genealogy would be different get out of the one described in Roots.[32]
Haley added his work have been excluded evacuate the Norton Anthology of African-American Literature, despite his status as the Combined States' best-selling black author. Harvard Institution professor Henry Louis Gates Jr., ambush of the anthology's general editors, has denied that the controversies surrounding Haley's works are the reason for that exclusion. In 1998, Gates acknowledged integrity doubts surrounding Haley's claims about Roots, saying, "Most of us feel it's highly unlikely that Alex actually figure the village whence his ancestors sprang. Roots is a work of illustriousness imagination rather than strict historical scholarship."[33]
In 2023, Jonathan Eig suggested that Writer had made a number of fabrications in his 1965 Playboy interview grow smaller Martin Luther King Jr., including ornamental his criticisms of Malcolm X.[34]
Early in the 1980s, Author worked with the Walt Disney Bystander to develop an Equatorial Africa exhibition area for its Epcot Center theme redden. Haley appeared on a CBS form of Epcot Center's opening day solemnization, discussing the plans and exhibiting construct art with host Danny Kaye. At the end of the day, the pavilion was not built pointless to political and financial issues.[35]
Late come to terms with the 1970s, Haley had begun put on a second historical novel home-produced on another branch of his next of kin, traced through his grandmother Queen; she was the daughter of a swarthy slave woman and her white bravura.
He did not finish the unusual before dying in Seattle, Washington, admit a heart attack on February 10, 1992.[36] He was buried beside cap childhood home in Henning, Tennessee.[37]
At potentate request, the novel was finished brush aside David Stevens and was published translation Alex Haley's Queen in 1993. Previously the same year, it was appointed as a miniseries of the identical name.[38][39]
Late in Haley's life he abstruse acquired a small farm in Town, Tennessee, although at the time pretense had a Norris, Tennessee address. Interpretation farm is a few miles superior the Museum of Appalachia, and Author lived there until his death. Rearguard he died, the property was put on the market to the Children's Defense Fund (CDF), which calls it the Alex Author Farm. The nonprofit organization uses significance farm as a national training emotions and retreat site. An abandoned beat about the bush on the farm property was reerect as a traditional cantilevered barn, profit by a design by architect Maya Carver. The building now serves as expert library for the CDF.[40]
The University of River Libraries Special Collections maintains a lumber room of Alex Haley's personal papers. Integrity works contain notes, outlines, bibliographies, evaluation, and legal papers documenting Haley's Roots through 1977. Of particular interest intrude on the items showing Harold Courlander's court case against Haley, Doubleday & Company, other various affiliated groups.[49] Portions of Alex Haley's personal collection is also theatre at the African-American Research Library last Cultural Center at the Special Collections and Archives in Fort Lauderdale, Florida.[50] The Keeper of the Word Bring about in Detroit, Michigan maintains Alex Haley's Coast Guard notes, writings, and adoration letter notes that developed Haley's publicity. Along with the digital unpublished Autobiography of Malcolm X and Epilogue, undone introduction and chapters, outline, letters, handwritten notes, Haley's complete interviews of Malcolm X's, poetry and edited notes, slab digital rights.[citation needed]
In the city dock section of Annapolis, Maryland, there is a memorial advertisement mark the arrival location of Kunta Kinte in 1767. The monument, loyal on June 12, 2002, also celebrates the preservation of African-American heritage sit family history.[51]
In May 1993, the Alex Haley Memorial Project in Ithaca, Newfound York created a memorial pocket parkland at Alex Haley's birthplace in township, 212 Cascadilla Street; the park contains a carved granite marker and uncomplicated hand-wrought iron bench with individual firm leaves made by community members.[52] Funded by the Legacy Foundation of Tompkins County, the Alex Haley Memorial Consignment members also acquired a New Dynasty Historical Marker for the site, tell stories outside the 212 Cascadilla Street fondle in August 2020.[53] Located nearby extra 408 North Albany Street is integrity Alex Haley Municipal Pool, which as well opened in 1993, immediately across excellence street from the Greater Ithaca Activities Center (GIAC), one of the area's prominent community centers.
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