|
|
|
|
Alex Haley, an African American writer, is best known for as the author of the novel Roots: The Saga of an American Family, from which two television miniseries, Roots and Roots II, were adapted. The novels, loosely based on Haley's own family, presented an interpretation of the journey of African Americans from their homeland to the United States and their subsequent search for freedom and dignity. The novel was published in 1976, when the United States was celebrating it's bicentennial.
During the last week of January 1977 the first Roots miniseries was aired by the American Broadcasting Company (ABC). Its phenomenal success surprised everyone, including Haley and the network executives who had "dumped" the program into one week, fearing the subject matter would not attract an audience. Instead Roots garnered one of the largest audiences for dramatic television in the U.S. history of the medium, averaging a 44.9 rating and a 66 share.
The success of Roots went far beyond attracting a large audience, however. The miniseries and Alex Haley, became a cause clbre. In a cover story, Time magazine reported that restaurant and shop owners saw profits decline when the series was on the air. The report noted that bartenders were able to keep customers only by turning the channel selector away from basketball and hockey and tuning instead to those stations carrying Roots. Parents named their newborn after characters in the series, especially the lead character, Kunta Kinte.
The airing of Roots raised issues about the effects of television. There were debates about whether the television series would ease race relations or exacerbate them. A Time magazine article explained that "Many observers feel that the TV series left whites with a more sympathetic view of blacks by giving them a greater appreciation of black history." The same article reported that white junior high school students were harassing African Americans and that black youths assaulted four white youths in Detroit while chanting, "Roots, roots, roots."
Haley began his writing career through assignments from Reader's Digest and Playboy magazine, where he conducted interviews. During this time he met Malcolm X, then one of the followers of Elijah Muhammad, leader of the Nation of Islam. Later Haley was asked by Malcolm X to write his life's story. The result of that collaboration, The Autobiography of Malcolm X, was published in 1965 and sold six million copies.
Roots, Haley's next bestseller, was a fictionalized version of his own search for his ancestral past, which led him to the African village of Juffure, in Gambia. Haley described Roots as "faction," a combination of fact and fiction. Although criticized by some for taking too many liberties in the telling of his journey into his ancestral past, Haley maintained that "Roots is intended to convey a symbolic history of a people."
In the 1980s Leslie Fishbein reviewed previous studies concerned with the inaccuracies found in both the book and television series and noted that Haley glossed over the complicity of Africans in the slave trade. Fishbein also analyzed an inherent contradiction in Haley's work--it centers on the family as an independent unit that isolates itself from the rest of the community and is thus unable effectively to fight the forces of slavery and racism.
Debates about Roots continued into the 1990s. Researchers Tucker and Shah have argued that the production of Roots by a predominantly white group led to decisions that resulted in an interpretation of race in the United States reflecting an Anglo-American rather than an African American perspective. They also criticized the television version of Roots for transforming the African American experience in the United States into an "immigrant" story, a narrative model in which slavery becomes a hardship, much like the hardships of other immigrant groups, which a people must experience before taking their place along side full-fledged citizens. When slavery is simplified in this fashion and stripped of its context as a creation of social, economic and political forces, those who experience slavery are also stripped of their humanity.
The tremendous success of Roots, can only be appreciated within its social context. The United States was moving away from what have come to be known as the "turbulent 60s" into a era when threats from outside forces, both real and imagined, such as the Middle Eastern Oil Cartel, and instability in Central America, especially Nicaragua, contributed to the need for a closing of ranks.
On one level, then, the program served as a symbolic ritual that helped bring African-Americans into the national community. At another, more practical level, it represents the recognition on the part of television executives that the African American community had become a significant and integral part of the larger mass audience. As Wilson and Gutierrez have written, "In the 1970s, mass-audience advertising in the United States became more racially integrated than in any time in the nation's history." These writers point out that during this time blacks could be seen much more frequently in television commercials.
The importance of Alex Haley and the impact of his work on television history should not be underestimated. To fully appreciate the contribution he made to medium, the African American community and the country, his work must be examined within a context of changing demographics, historical events at home and abroad and, most important, the centuries-long struggle of a people to be recognized as full-fledged members of the national community.
ALEX (PALMER) HALEY. Born in Ithaca, New York, U.S.A., 11 August, 1921. Attended Elizabeth City Teachers College, North Carolina, 1936-37. Married 1) Nannie Branch, 1941 (divorced, 1964); children: Lydia Ann and William Alexander; 2) Juliette Collins, 1964; children: Cynthia Gertrude. Served in the U.S. Coast Guard 1939-59, ship's cook during World War II, and chief journalist. On retirement from the Coast Guard, became fulltime writer, contributing stories, articles, and interviews to Playboy, Harper's, Atlantic, and Reader's Digest; based on interviews, wrote The Autobiography of Malcolm X, 1965; author, Roots: The Saga of an American Family, 1976, which was adapted as television miniseries, 1977; wrote A Different Kind of Christmas, 1988. Recipient: Pulitzer Prize, 1977. Died in Seattle, Washington, 10 February 1992.
TELEVISION
1977 Roots
1980 Palmerstown, U.S.A. (producer)
1993 Alex Haley's Queen
PUBLICATIONS
With Malcolm X. The Autobiography of Malcolm X. New York: Ballantine, 1965.
Roots. Garden City, New York: Doubleday, 1976.
A Different Kind of Christmas. New York: Doubleday, 1988.
Alex Haley's Queen: The Story of an American Family. New York: Morrow, 1993.
The Playboy Interviews. New York: Ballantine, 1993.
FURTHER READING
Dates, Jannette L. "Commercial Television." In Dates, Jannette, and William Barlow, editors. Split Image: African Americans in the Mass Media. Washington, D.C.: Howard University Press, 1990.
"Family Ties." The New Yorker (New York), 26 October 1992.
Fishbein, Leslie. "Roots: Docudrama and the Interpretation of History" In, O'Connor, John E., editor. American History, American Television: Interpreting the Video Past. New York: Ungar, 1983.
Gonzalez, Doreen. Alex Haley: Author of Roots. Hillside, New Jersey: Enslow, 1994.
Greenfield, Meg. "Uncle Tom's Roots." Newsweek (New York), 14 February 1977.
"Haley's Rx: Talk, Write, Reunite." Time (New York), 14 February 1977.
Shirley, David. Alex Haley. New York: Chelsea House, 1994.
Tucker, Lauren R., and Hemant Shah. "Race and the Transformation of Culture: The Making of the Television Miniseries Roots." Critical Studies in Mass Communication (Annandale, Virginia), 1992.
"Why 'Roots' Hit Home." Time (New York), 14 February 1977.
Williams, Sylvia B. Alex Haley. Edina, Minnesota: Abdo & Daughters, 1996.
Wilson, Clint C., and Flix Gutirrez. Minorities and Media: Diversity and the End of Mass Communication. Newbury Park, California: Sage, 1985.
Woodward, Kenneth L., and Anthony Collings. "The Limits of 'Faction.'" Newsweek (New York), 25 April 1977.
Alexander Palmer Haley, Chief Journalist, USCG (Ret.)
1921-1992
Alexander Palmer Haley was born in Ithaca, New York, on 11 August 1921. He graduated from high school at the age of 15 and attended the State Teacher's College in Elizabeth City, North Carolina, for two years and, at the urging of his father, he enlisted in the Coast Guard in 1939. Haley signed up for a three-year enlistment in the Coast Guard on 24 May 1939. He enlisted as a Mess Attendant Third Class, since the Mess Attendant and Steward's Mate ratings were the only ratings in the Navy and Coast Guard open to minorities at that time.
As was the case in the pre-World War II Coast Guard, which had no enlisted training center as of yet, Healy was immediately assigned to the cutter Mendota(right),based out of Norfolk. She was a newer 250-foot "Lake" Class cutter that had been in service only a few years when Haley reported aboard. Here he learned his new job through "on the job" training from the Mendota's veterans.
During the long patrols Haley began writing letters to friends and relatives, sometimes sending over 40 a week. He received in reply almost as many letters as he sent out, and became somewhat famous among his shipmates. Haley soon found himself fielding offers from his fellow crewmen to help them with their letters. Some of his fellow crewman even offered a financial compensation to lure the ever-eloquent Haley into composing convincing love letters to the objects of their affections, without, of course, letting the "object" know that the letter was actually written by Haley. Apparently his ghost-writing was successful and Haley consequently accumulated a goodly sum for his off-duty writing.
Haley also listened to the old salts aboard when they would spin their nautical yarns and decided to begin writing in earnest. He composed short articles and sent them off to magazine publishers, including the Coast Guard Magazine, a privately-printed magazine that was popular with most Coast Guardsmen of the time. On 21 February 1940 the Coast Guard transferred Haley to the old cutter Pamlico(left),which was first commissioned in 1907 and was home-ported in New Bern, North Carolina. From here the cutter sailed the shallow waters of coastal North Carolina and continued to serve in those waters after the United States entered World War II as a belligerent. Haley was promoted to Officer's Steward, Third Class on 26 March 1942 while on board.
The following year, 7 May 1943, he was transferred to the large cargo vessel USS Murzim (AK-95) which saw service in the Pacific Theatre. Duty on board these vessels was extremely hazardous -- her sister ship, the USS Serpens(below, right),was completely destroyed while offloading cargo in Guadalcanal, causing the worst loss of life ever suffered by the Coast Guard. Haley soon began writing what combat was like, and the Coast Guard Magazine published his article "In the Pacific" in their February 1944 issue. This is the first published article by Haley that we were able to uncover. In the article he describes life on board Murzim as she crossed the Pacific, steaming towards another invasion--and what it was like to undergo yet another call to "General Quarters."
(Right: The USS Serpens, AK-97, sister ship to the Murzim. The Serpens was destroyed while unloading her cargo near Guadalcanal, killing 193 Coast Guardsmen, 56 U.S. Army soldiers, and a U.S. Public Health Service surgeon--evidence of how dangerous sailing aboard an "AK" during the war truly was.)
Haley started a mimeographed ship's newspaper entitled "Seafarer." In one of his editorials entitled "Mail Call," he depicted the disappointment felt by servicemen whose family and friends did not write to them. The editorial was reprinted in major newspapers across the country.
Towards the end of the war, Haley was assigned to edit the "Outpost," an official Coast Guard periodical published by the Coast Guard's Personnel Separation Center. His editorial work here earned him a "commendable mention" from the Ships Editorial Association, a Navy board of overseers. Later Haley became a reporter, then assistant editor, and then editor for the Coast Guard publication "Helmsman" while working in the Third Coast Guard District's headquarters building in New York City. The Coast Guard finally (and officially) recognized his talents and, on 29 June 1949, Haley changed ratings and was promoted to Journalist, First Class. JO1c Haley made chief later that year, on 16 December 1949 (left; click on thumbnail for a 300 dpi image).
He was, at that time, the only chief journalist in the Coast Guard. An article written about him at this time noted:
"New York Newsmen Pay Glowing Tribute to Coast Guard's Only Chief Journalist: . . .You can call him 'chief' now -- the amiable, industrious and ever helpful Alex Haley, the man behind the public information phone at New York City's Coast Guard Headquarters, who has just about become 'Mr. Coast Guard' to the working press of the metropolis. When there's a ship in distress along the Atlantic coast, a plane down at sea, a fishing party marooned or on any one of a hundred other mishaps, Haley's the guy who feed the newspapers and wire services the latest information. If he's got it, you have it. If he hasn't got it, he'll get it -- that's Haley. This amazing, 28 year-old dynamo, who has two phones in his home so his pretty wife can take information from C. G. headquarters while he passes it on to the papers, has just been notified that he has received the rating of chief journalist, the only such title in the service."
While in New York, he served as the assistant to the public relations officer and continuously wrote articles that were published in the Coast Guard Magazine. He transferred to the 12th Coast Guard District in September of 1954 and retired in 1959 to pursue his dream of becoming a full-time, free-lance writer.
He said of the Coast Guard: "You don't spend twenty years of your life in the service and not have a warm, nostalgic feeling left in you. It's a small service, the Coast Guard, and there is a lot of esprit de corps."
Haley went on to a distinguished career as a writer, gaining international fame with his book Roots: The Saga of an American Family, first published in 1976 and later made into a television mini-series. He passed away in 1992.
JOC Alex P. Haley, USCG
U.S. Coast Guard Service Record
Born: 11 August 1920
Place of Birth: Ithaca, New York
Citizenship: U.S. Citizen
Date of Enlistment: 24 May 1939
Service Number: 212-548
Units Served / Date / Rate / Remarks:
Seventh District / 24 May 1939 / M. Att. 3c. [Mess Attendant, 3rd Class] / Orig. Enl. Three Years Auth. F-2626-B 5-18-39
MENDOTA / 5-24-39 / M.Att. 3c. / Tr. made perm. 5-25-39
MENDOTA / 11-29-39 / M.Att. 2c. / Cr. HL 9-30-39
PAMLICO / 2-21-40 / M.Att. 2c. / Tr.
PAMLICO / 10-3-40 / M.Att. 1c. / Cr. Pers. Bulletin 2-40
PAMLICO (ND) / 9-1-41 / M. Att. 1c. (Pro.) / Tr.
PAMLICO / 3-26-42 / Off. Std. 3c. [Officers' Steward, 3rd Class] (Pro.) / Cr.--
PAMLICO / 6-4-42 / Off. Stdd. 3c. (Pro.) / Enl. ext. 3 years
PAMLICO / 6-12-42 / Off. Stdd 2c. (Pro.) / Cr.--
ELIZ. CITY AIR (ND) / 9-27-42 / Off. Std. 2c (Pro.) / Tr.
USS MURZIM / 5-7-43 / Off. Std. 2c. (Pro.) / to AK 95
USS AK 95 [MURZIM] / 5-14-43 / Off. Std. 2c. (Pro.) / [illegible]
BASE HOSPITAL / [illegible]
3RD CGD /
OC3CGD NY (03) / 6-29-49 / JO1 [Journalist, 1st Class] / HD(EE)
OC3CGD NY (03) / 6-30-49 / JO1 / Reenl. Reg. Estab. 3 years
OC3CGD NY (03) / 12-16-49 / JOCA / CR
OC3CGD (PI) (03) / 10-16-51 / JOC / CR
OC3CGD (PI) (O3) / 6-30-52 / JOC / HD, EE & 1 Day Extension
OC3CGD (pi) / 7-1-52 / JOC / Reenl. for Six Years.
OC3CGD (pi) / 8-30-54 / JOC / TR OCCGD12
OCCGD12 / 9-29-54 / Rptd fm c-3 fasdu; Disch. 7-1-58 Reen (3) yrs. (24 hrs) 7-1-58 Placed on ret. list (20 Yr) eff. 6-1-59.
AWARDS & CITATIONS
Asiatic-Pacific Campaign Medal
European, African & Middle Eastern Campaign Medal
American Theatre Campaign Medal
American Defense Service Medal with Sea Clasp
World War II Victory
Honorable Discharge Button
Korean Service Medal
Coast Guard Good Conduct Award (7 total)
Commandant's Letter of Commendation
Expert Rifleman
|
|
|
|
|
|
Home
