(The fates of Crawford Sloane, CBA-TV anchorman, and his c...)
The fates of Crawford Sloane, CBA-TV anchorman, and his colleague and competitor, Harry Partridge, collide when terrorists threaten their lives and both men vie for the love of Crawford's wife
Alex Hailey: The Man Who Traced America's Roots - His Life, His Works (with DVD)
(Alex Haley: The Man Who Traced America's Roots is a colle...)
Alex Haley: The Man Who Traced America's Roots is a collection of articles the Pulitzer Prize-winning author wrote for Reader's Digest from 1954 to 1991. Haley's stories are timeless, as powerful and relevant today as when they were first written. In 1966, Alex Haley, a contributing writer for Reader's Digest, wanted to tell his family's "story-history." For ten years, Reader's Digest financed Haley's research and travel. The result of this historic collaboration was Roots, the Pulitzer-winning book. Alex Haley: The Man Who Traced America's Roots is a celebration of the 30th anniversary of that epic classic and a recognition of a lifetime of writings that changed the nation. In this 176-page paperback book, Haley shares stories of triumph and resilience, of race and inequality, and the search that led to the groundbreaking book and TV miniseries, Roots. The collection includes an excerpt from Roots and the candid article "Aboard the African Star," in which Haley reveals his struggles as a professional writer and as a man. This edition also features an introduction from Lawrence Otis Graham, one of the nation's leading experts on race, politics and class in America.
(Everyone knows Alex Haley as the world-renowned author of...)
Everyone knows Alex Haley as the world-renowned author of the international bestseller ROOTS, and as the writer who collaborated with Malcolm X on his historic autobiography. What many people don't know is that Alex Haley began his professional writing career as a journalist. It was his experience in this arena that earned him the plum assignment as Playboy's first -- and foremost -- interviewer.
Witness Haley's work with the pre-Ali Cassius Clay, in which the posture of the young rebel fell away and a sensitive, intelligent young man emerged. He lured Malcolm X beyond his scathing Black Muslim rhetoric to reveal the agile, perceptive mind of a charismatic leader. With Johnny Carson, Haley revealed the man behind the mask of a charming television raconteur. And, in a devasting interview with George Lincoln Rockwell, the self-appointed fuhrer of the American Nazi Party, Haley deftly exposed the frightening heart and soul of the twisted man and his racist ideology.
A fascinating slice of recent history, an extraordinarily candid collection of celebrity interviews and personal reminiscences, ALEX HALEY: THE PLAYBOY INTERVIEWS anthologizes for the first time a gifted writer's finest work at its controversial and informative best.
(Presents the moving story of a young Southerner who joins...)
Presents the moving story of a young Southerner who joins the Underground Railroad and helps mastermind the escape of slaves from his father's plantation on Christmas Eve
(A new eight hour event series based on Roots will be simu...)
A new eight hour event series based on Roots will be simulcast on the History Channel Lifetime and A E over four consecutive nights beginning Memorial Day May 30 2016 Early in the spring of 1750 in the village of Juffure four days upriver from the coast of The Gambia West Africa a man child was born to Omoro and Binta Kinte So begins Roots one of the most extraordinary and influential books of our time Through the story of one family his family Alex Haley unforgettably brings to life the monumental two century drama of Kunta Kinte and the six generations who came after him slaves and freedmen farmers and blacksmiths lumber mill workmen and Pullman porters lawyers and architects and one author A national and international phenomenon at the time of its original publication Roots continues to enthrall readers with its masterful narrative drive and exceptional emotional power speaking to us all with an undiminished resonance and relevance In all of us there is a hunger marrow deep to know our heritage Without this enriching knowledge there is a hollow yearning no matter what our attainments in life Alex Haley With an introduction by Michael Eric Dyson RootsTheBook com A special tie in edition to the forthcoming remake of the seminal television miniseries airing in 2016 When Roots was first published forty years ago the book electrified the nation it received a Pulitzer Prize and was a 1 New York Times bestseller for 22 weeks The celebrated miniseries that followed a year later was a coast to coast event over 130 million Americans watched some or all of the broadcast In the four decades since then the story of the young African slave Kunta Kinte and his descendants has lost none of its power to enthrall and provoke Now with an all new television miniseries set to premiere on Memorial Day 2016 Roots once again bursts onto the national scene and at a time when the race conversation has never been more charged It is a b
(Tracing his family history on his father's side, Alex Hal...)
Tracing his family history on his father's side, Alex Haley begins with the story of his great-great-grandfather, James Jackson, sr., a white plantation owner
Alexander Murray Palmer Haley was an American writer.
Background
Alex Haley was born in Ithaca, New York, on August 11, 1921, and was the oldest of three brothers and a sister. Haley lived with his family in Henning, Tennessee, before returning to Ithaca with his family when he was five years old. Haley's father was Simon Haley, a professor of agriculture at Alabama A&M University, and his mother was Bertha George Haley (née Palmer), who had grown up in Henning. The family had African American, Mandinka, Cherokee, Scottish, and Scottish-Irish roots. The younger Haley always spoke proudly of his father and the obstacles of racism he had overcome.
Education
School records indicate that Haley was not an exceptional student. Like his father, Alex Haley was enrolled at age 15 in Alcorn State University, a historically black college in Mississippi and, a year later, enrolled at Elizabeth City State College, also historically black, in North Carolina. The following year he returned to his father and stepmother to tell them he had withdrawn from college.
Career
In 1939, Alex Haley enlisted with the United States Coast Guard as an 18 year old. This marked the beginning of a 20-year-long military career.
He started his career as a mess attendant and was soon promoted to the rank of petty officer third-class in the rating of steward. During his enlistment he realized his love for writing. He was a talented writer and his fellow soldiers, impressed by his skills paid him to write love-letters to their girlfriends on their behalf. He also started submitting short stories and articles to magazines.
After the World War II he was transferred to the field of journalism in the US Coast Guard and became a petty officer first class in the rating of journalist by 1949.
Eventually he was promoted to Chief Journalist of the Coast Guard, a grade he held till his retirement in 1959.
Post his retirement he embarked on a full-fledged literary career. He was asked by the ‘Playboy’ magazine to conduct an interview with the famous trumpeter Miles Davis. The interview, published in 1962 was a huge success and he went on to interview several other prominent figures like Martin Luther King Jr. , Sammy Davis Jr. , Quincy Jones and Malcolm X over the next few years.
He wrote his first book, ‘The Autobiography of Malcolm X: As Told to Alex Haley’, in 1965. The book outlined the life and philosophy of Malcolm X, a famous human rights activist, and became an international bestseller, establishing Alex Haley as an acclaimed writer.
He published the novel, ‘Roots: The Saga of an American Family’, in 1976. The novel, based on his ancestral history, told the story of Kunta Kitne, an 18th-century African, sold into slavery in the United States and traced the lives of his alleged descendants in the U. S. down to the author himself.
The novel created a sensation at the time of its publication and sparked a greatly increased public interest in genealogy. It also spawned a television miniseries of the same name by ABC in 1977 which reached a record-breaking 130 million viewers.
He was accused of plagiarism by two authors following the success of the novel ‘Roots: The Saga of an American Family’. Eventually he admitted that some passages in his book had been copied from Harold Courlander’s 1967 novel ‘The African’. The two authors ultimately went for an out-of-court settlement.
He started working on a second historical novel in the late 1970s though he could not complete it before his death. The novel was later finished by David Stevens and was published as ‘Alex Haley's Queen’, in 1993.
He died of a heart attack on February 10, 1992, at the age of 70, in Seattle, U. S.
Quotations:
"Racism is taught in our society, it is not automatic. It is learned behavior toward persons with dissimilar physical characteristics. "
"In every conceivable manner, the family is link to our past, bridge to our future. "
"In my writing, as much as I could, I tried to find the good, and praise it. "
"When you start about family, about lineage and ancestry, you are talking about every person on earth. "
"I look at my books the way parents look at their children. The fact that one becomes more successful than the others doesn't make me love the less successful one any less. "
"My fondest hope is that 'Roots' may start black, white, brown, red, yellow people digging back for their own roots. Man, that would make me feel 90 feet tall. "
"Roots is not just a saga of my family. It is the symbolic saga of a people. "
Speaking of the appeal of Roots among blacks, Haley added:"The blacks who are buying books are not buying them to go out and fight someone, but because they want to know who they are. … [The] book has touched a strong, subliminal chord. "
Connections
His first marriage to Nannie Branch in 1941 ended in divorce in 1964. The same year he married Juliette Collins and this union too ended in divorce in 1972. He tied the knot for the third time with Myra Lewis but the couple separated later on. He had three children, a son and two daughters.