“Saga of a People” lecture, 122, 125, 127
San Francisco State University, 123
Saturday Evening Post, 28, 30, 41, 51–52, 79–80, 83
Schickel, Richard, 168
Scott, Scrap, 3
Scott, Percival L., 21–24, 42
Shabazz, Attallah, 218
Shabazz, Betty, 88, 128, 172, 216, 218, 220
Shabazz, El-Hajj Malik El, 74
see also Malcolm X
Sharieff, Ethel and Raymond, 52
Shirer, William, 55
Show Business Illustrated, 41, 49–50
Silverman, Fred, 166
Sims, George, 8, 39–40, 60, 66, 99, 110, 112–13, 119, 190, 193, 219–20, 222
Sixteenth Street Baptist Church, 67
Skidmore College, 189, 194
Slave Community, The (Blassingame), 145
Spectorsky, A. C., 49–50, 53
Sono, Ndanco, 153
Souls of Black Folk, The (Du Bois), 48, 65
Southern Folk Cultural Revival Project, 214
Southern Student Organizing Committee, 214
State University of New York, Cortland, 198
Stone, Chuck, 168–69
Stone, I. F., 92
Stone, Irving, 58
“Story Behind the Story of Malcolm X” lecture, 122
Stowe, Harriet Beecher, 81, 154–55, 157, 188
Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, 102
Students for a Democratic Society, 123
Super Fly T.N.T. (film), 132
Taylor, Elizabeth, 171
Taylor, Helen, 157, 224
Tennessee Homecoming, 211–12
Tennessee Valley Authority, 212
Things Fall Apart (Achebe), 189
“Through the Racial Looking Glass” (Hentoff), 50
Till, Emmett, 31
To Tell the Truth (TV series), 131
Tropic of Capricorn (Miller), 90
Truman, Harry S., 26
Tubman, Harriet, 138
Turner, Carrie White, 4
Turner, Tina, 225
Uncle Tom’s Cabin (Stowe), 99, 154–56, 158
“Uncovering Roots” (Nobile), 221
Universal Negro Improvement Association (UNIA), 48–49
University of Alabama, 199
University of Arkansas, 43
University of California at Berkeley, 132
University of Connecticut, 124
University of Iowa, 185
University of Michigan, 188
University of Rochester, 145
University of Tennessee, 212–14, 220–21
University of Virginia, 214
Vansina, Jan, 101, 110, 112, 118–19, 126, 153, 224
Viking Press, 108
Village Voice, 50, 183, 221
Walker, Jimmie, 209
Walker, Margaret, 183–88, 222
Wall Street Journal, 124, 134
Wallace, DeWitt, 42, 58, 80, 105
Wallace, Lila, 105–6
Wallace, Mike, 45, 47
Wallace, Irving, 55, 81
Ware, Randall, 185
Warren, Robert Penn, 92
Washington, Booker T., 95, 205
Washington Post, 92, 151
“What the Negro Must Do for Himself” lecture (Haley), 105, 122
White, David, 213
Wilkins, Roy, 62
William Morrow and Company, 109, 128
Williams, Lucinda, 44
Williams, Miller, 43–44
Wiser, Waller, 122–23
Wolper, David, 133, 135, 139, 159–62, 166, 170, 207, 216–18, 220
World of Our Fathers (Howe), 150
World Press Institute, 105
World’s Fair, 212
Wright, Donald R., 198–99
Wright, Richard, 26, 30, 41, 55, 61, 184–85
Yale University, 145
Young, Lewis, 4
Zimmerman, P. D., 153
Alex Haley heard his family stories as a child on the front porch of this house. He was buried in front of it in 1992.
Courtesy of Christy Hunter Photography, Munford, Tennessee
Bertha Palmer Haley, the indulged only child of the well-to-do Will Palmer, died when her first child, Alex, was only ten years old.
Courtesy of the Anne Romaine Collection, University of Tennessee Knoxville Libraries
The exciting life of George Lea, “Chicken George,” captured the imagination of his great-great-grandson Alex Haley.
Courtesy of the Anne Romaine Collection, University of Tennessee Knoxville Libraries
Alex Haley joined the United States Coast Guard at age eighteen in 1939 and developed a successful career as a writer over the next twenty years.
Courtesy of the United States Coast Guard
Despite some tense times early in their collaboration, Malcolm X and Haley became good friends.
Courtesy of the Library of Congress
The Autobiography of Malcolm X, published in 1965 by Grove Press, had modest sales in its first two years before becoming a runaway best seller in the late 1960s.
Roots was an instant best seller even before the television miniseries was shown, and after that bookstores had difficulty keeping it in stock.
When wide national and international fame came to him, Alex Haley often gave commencement addresses and received many honorary degrees.
Courtesy of the Photographic Department, University of Tennessee Knoxville
Alex Haley became a national celebrity in 1977 and for the remainder of his life was frequently seen on television programs like Hee-Haw, as shown here with Minnie Pearl and Archie Campbell, stars of the Grand Ole Opry.
Courtesy of the State of Tennessee
Alex Haley enjoyed life on his farm near Knoxville when he moved there in the 1980s.
Courtesy of the Photographic Department, University of Tennessee Knoxville
The week after Roots aired, Time magazine put the phenomenon on its cover and assessed its meaning.
On the twenty-fifth anniversary of the Roots miniseries in 2002, Warner Brother reissued the series on DVD.
In its ad for the Roots miniseries, ABC emphasized its historic significance and its interracial cast.
About the Author
ROBERT J. NORRELL is the author of several books, including Up from History: The Life of Booker T. Washington; The House I Live In: Race in the American Century; and Reaping the Whirlwind: The Civil Rights Movement in Tuskegee, which won the Robert F. Kennedy Book Award in 1986. A professor at the University of Tennessee, he lives in Asheville, North Carolina.
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Contents
Title Page
Dedication
Preface
Acknowledgments
1: Grandma’s Boy
2: The Cook Who Writes
3: People on the Way Up
4: The Fearsome Black Demagogue
5: Marked Man
6: Before This Anger
7: The American Griot
8: The Black Family Bible
9: Pop Triumph
10: Roots Uncovered
11: Find the Good and Praise
It
Note Abbreviations
Notes
Index
Photographs
About the Author
Copyright Page
ALEX HALEY. Copyright © 2015 by Robert J. Norrell. All rights reserved. For information, address St. Martin’s Press, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10010.
www.stmartins.com
Jacket design by David Baldeosingh Rotstein
Jacket photography © Dennis Wile
The Library of Congress has cataloged the print edition as follows:
Norrell, Robert J. (Robert Jefferson)
Alex Haley and the books that changed a nation / Robert J. Norrell.
pages cm
ISBN 978-1-137-27960-6 (hardback)
1. Haley, Alex. 2. African American journalists—Biography. 3. Authors, American—20th century—Biography. 4. Haley, Alex. Autobiography of Malcom X. 5. Haley, Alex. Roots. I. Title.
E185.97 .H24N68 2015
973'.0496073—dc23
2015016043
e-ISBN 978-1-4668-7931-7
First Edition: November 2015
Our e-books may be purchased in bulk for promotional, educational, or business use. Please contact the Macmillan Corporate and Premium Sales Department at (800) 221-7945, extension 5442, or by e-mail at [email protected].
Alex Haley Page 28