Alex Haley

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Alex Haley served with the U.S. Coast Guard for 20 years

Alexander Murray Palmer Haley (born August 11, 1921 in Ithaca , New York , † February 10, 1992 in Seattle , Washington ) was an American writer . He became known worldwide through his novel Roots , in which he told the story of his ancestors, which was previously only passed on orally, starting with Kunta Kinte , who is said to have been kidnapped in what is now the Gambia in 1767 and deported as a slave to the then British colony of Maryland . For Roots he received the 1977Pulitzer Prize . In the same year the television series of the same name was broadcast.

Life

Alex Haley's grave in Henning , Tennessee

Haley grew up in the southern United States and served in the Coast Guard from 1939 to 1959 . On the side he started writing short stories and articles. After the end of the Second World War in 1949 he was promoted to petty officer first-class as a journalist and in 1959 resigned from the coast guard as chief petty officer. The post as first chief journalist was created explicitly for him.

Career as an author

He worked as a journalist a. a. for Reader's Digest and The Saturday Evening Post . Between 1963 and 1965 he wrote Malcolm X's autobiography together. According to his own statements, he had researched for Roots for twelve years , and the book published in 1976 and the television series, which was first broadcast the following year, were hugely successful. Roots has been translated into 37 languages ​​and the film was viewed by around 130 million people. For the first time, the general public became aware of the history of Americans of African descent . Another film adaptation for television followed in 2016 .

playboy

In 1962, editor Hugh Hefner wanted to expand the interviews in his Playboy magazine ; An unfinished interview that Haley had started for the recently discontinued “Show Business Illustrated” became the first Playboy interview in which Miles Davis was able to express his thoughts on racism. Further interviews with Malcolm X , Muhammed Ali and Martin Luther King Jr. followed. George Lincoln Rockwell , leader of the American Nazi Party , agreed to an interview only after Haley had assured him that he was not a Jew.

The Autobiography of Malcolm X

In 1965 Haley's first book was published based on more than 50 interviews with Malcolm X and traced his path from petty criminal to leader of the Nation of Islam and devout Sunnis. The book has been a bestseller since it was first published and was listed by TIME in 1998 as one of the 10 most important non-fiction books of the 20th century. The book served as the basis for the documentation Malcolm X (1972).

Allegations of plagiarism and falsification

From 1978 onwards, Haley's reputation was damaged by plagiarism allegations. After being charged with copying more than 80 passages from Harold Courlander's book The African , he pledged to pay $ 650,000 in an out-of-court settlement. 1988 it sued Margaret Walker because he rights to her novel Jubilee breached. This lawsuit was dismissed. Haley's literary work was also attacked on other points. Malcolm X's family and members of the Nation of Islam accused him of misrepresenting historical facts.

Later years

In the 1980s, Haley began work on a second novel that dealt with another branch of his family tree, that of his grandmother "Queen", who was the daughter of a slave and her white master. Haley died shortly before the manuscript was completed. It was completed by David Stevens and published under the title Alex Haley's Queen . This book was also made into a film in 1993.

Honors

In 1977 he received the NAACP's Spingarn Medal for his work on Roots .

In 1999 the US Coast Guard posthumously commissioned USCGC Alex Haley (WMEC-39) , a former US Navy cutter who is now stationed in Kodiak, Alaska . The Coast Guard also named the Petaluma training center building after him and presented the Chief Journalist Alex Haley Award . In 2002 he was posthumously awarded the Korean War Service Medal , which could not be awarded to US armed forces until 1999.

Works

Web links

Commons : Alex Haley  - collection of pictures, videos and audio files
personal data
SURNAME Haley, Alex
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Haley, Alexander Palmer (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American writer
DATE OF BIRTH August 11, 1921
PLACE OF BIRTH Ithaca , New York
DATE OF DEATH February 10, 1992
Place of death Seattle , Washington