Alex Murray Palmer Haley
Haley was an American writer and the author of the 1976 book Roots: The Saga of an American Family. ABC adapted the book as a television miniseries of the same name and aired it in 1977 to a record breaking audience of 130 million viewers
1921
1992
Ithaca, New York, USA
American Mandinka, Cherokee, Scottish, Scottish-Irish heritage
In 1977, Haley earned The Pulitzer Prize for Roots: The story of a Black family from its origins in Africa through seven generations to the present day in America.
In 1977 Haley received the Spingarn Medal from the NAACP, for his exhaustive research and literary skill combined in Roots.[34]
In 1977, Haley received the Golden Plate Award of the American Academy of Achievement.
The food service building at the U.S. Coast Guard Training Centre, Petaluma, California, was named Haley Hall in honour of the author.
In 1999 the Coast Guard honoured Haley by naming the cutter USCGC Alex Haley after him.
The U.S. Coast Guard annually awards the Chief Journalist Alex Haley Award, which is named in honour of the writer as the Coast Guard’s first chief journalist (the first Coast Guardsman in the rating of journalist to be advanced to the rate of chief petty officerIn 2002 the Republic of Korea (South Korea) posthumously awarded Haley its Korean War Service Medal (created in 1951), which the US Government did not allow its service members to accept until 1999.
Haley lived with his family in Henning, Tennessee, before returning to Ithaca with his family when he was five years old. The family had Mandinka, other African, Cherokee, Scottish, and Scottish-Irish roots. The younger Haley always spoke proudly of his father and the obstacles of racism he had overcome.
Like his father, Alex Haley was enrolled at Alcorn State University, a historically Black college in Mississippi and, a year later, enrolled at Elizabeth 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 became a 20year career in the United States Coast Guard.
Haley traced back his maternal ancestry, through genealogical research, to Jufureh, in The Gambia.
After retiring from the US Coast Guard, Haley began another phase of his journalism career. He eventually became a senior editor for Reader’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 for Playboy magazine. Haley elicited candid comments from jazz musician Miles Davis about his thoughts and feelings on racism in an interview he had started, but not finished, for Show Business Illustrated, another magazine created by Playboy founder Hugh Hefner that folded in early 1962. Haley completed the interview and it appeared in Playboy’s September 1962 issue. That interview set the tone for what became a significant feature of the magazine. Rev.Martin Luther King Jr’s Playboy Interview with Haley was the longest he ever granted to any publication.
The Autobiography of Malcolm X, published in 1965, was Haley’s first book. It describes the trajectory of Malcolm X’s life from street criminal to national spokesman for the Nation of Islam to his conversion to Sunni Islam. It also outlines Malcolm X’s philosophy of Black pride, Black nationalism, and pan Africanism. Haley wrote an epilogue to the book summarising the end of Malcolm X’s life, including his assassination in New York’s Audubon Ballroom.
In 1976 Haley published Roots: The Saga of an American Family, a novel based on his family’s history, going back to slavery days. It started with the story of Kunta Kinte, who was kidnapped in the Gambia in 1767 and transported to the Province of Maryland to be sold as a slave. 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 of Juffure, where Kunta Kinte grew up and listened to a tribal historian (griot) tell the story of Kinte’s capture. Haley also traced the records of the ship, The Lord Ligonier, which he said carried his ancestor to the Americas.
Parents: Simon Haley, Bertha George Haley
Spouse: Myra Lewis (m. 1977–1992), Juliette Collins (m. 1964–1972), Nannie Branch (m. 1941–1964)
Children: Cynthia Haley, Lydia Haley, William Alex Haley
Siblings: George W. Haley, Julius Haley, Lois Butts Haley
https://www.history.com/topics/Black-history/alex-haley accessed 17/04/2022
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alex_Haley accessed 17/04/2022
https://archive.jsonline.com/entertainment/books/biography-makes-case-for-legacy-of-roots-author-alex-haley-b99612119z1-347637521.html/ accessed 17/04/2022
https://www.washingtonpost.com/history/2022/02/05/alex-haley-readers-digest-roots-malcolm/ accessed 17/04/2022
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alex_Haley accessed 17/04/2022
https://www.brainyquote.com/authors/alex-haley-quotes accessed 17/04/2022
