… was born 90 years ago today. Haley was the author of two publishing phenomena — The Autobiography of Malcolm X (6 million copies) and Roots, which was not only a best-seller, but led to one of the most successful television series ever. Nearly half the people in the country watched the last episode in January 1977. Haley won a special Pulitzer for Roots, “the story of a black family from its origins in Africa through seven generations to the present day in America.”
Subsequently it bothered me to learn he plagarized sections of the book and possibly fudged some of the genealogy. Clearly, that wasn’t right. Even so, the good his work did in educating both black and white America (and I include both books) was a legacy of major proportion.
I sat on the stage behind Haley once in 1979 as he spoke. He was a very self-possessed and self-assured speaker, confident yet pleasant and informal. He spoke for some time without notes, telling the story about the story — that is, how he learned about his family. As he spoke I could see the rapture on the faces of his listeners. To an audience of genealogists this was the Sermon on the Mount.
Haley, who served in the U.S. Coast Guard 1939-1959, before becoming a full-time writer, died of a heart attack in 1992. The Coast Guard has named a cutter for him.