Alex Haley

Alex Palmer Haley (August 11, 1921 - February 10, 1992) was an African-American US Coast Guardsman who was the lead journalist for the service before retiring to become a senior editor for Reader's Digest. He wrote The Autobiography of Malcolm X in 1965 and is probably best known for his book Roots: The Saga of an American Family, a fictionalized account of his family's history, starting with the story of Kunta Kinte, kidnapped in Gambia in 1767 to be sold as a slave in the United States. Roots won the Pulitzer Prize and went on to become a popular television mini-series.

Born in Ithaca, New York, Haley grew up in the Southern U.S. and served in the Coast Guard from 1939 to 1959; during this time he started writing short stories and articles. He researched Roots for 12 years; the book was made into a TV series that aired in 1977. The same year, Haley won a Pulitzer Prize for the book and the Spingarn Medal as well.

The book and film were both successful, evidently striking a chord in the American psyche and reaching record-breaking 130 million viewers when it was serialized on television. Roots emphasized African-Americans too have a long history and that not all of that history is lost, as many believed. Its popularity sparked an increased public interest in genealogy, as well.

Haley's fame was marred by plagiarism charges, and after a trial, he was permitted to settle out-of-court for $650,000, having admitted that he copied large passages of Roots from The African by Harold Courlander.

External Links

• Biography
• The Kunta Kinte - Alex Haley Foundation
• Coast Guard cutter named after Alex Haley