Alex Haley (1921-1992). Pulitzer Prize winning journalist and author whose works of historical fiction and reportage depict the struggles of American blacks. He was the author of Roots (published in 1976 after twelve years of research), a record setting, best-selling novel based on Haley’s maternal family history that he successfully traced to the African Slave Trade.
Roots was made into a blockbuster television miniseries the following year and reportedly viewed in more than fifty percent of American homes. Alex Haley’s sprawling saga of Kunta Kinte and his family continues to fascinate audiences. A briefer but updated series-remake (containing scenes and current issues raised by the Black Lives Matter movement) was aired on three major cable networks in 2016.
Historian David Gerber has noticed a striking similarity between Haley’s Black Power collaborator, Malcolm X, and Kunta Kinte in fulfilling the collective emotional need to model “strength, dignity, and self-creation in a hostile or, at best, indifferent white world.”