“If I ’d known I ’d be this successful, I would have typed faster. “Do you know what it ’s like to go from the YMCA to the Waldorf? ” he asked a People reporter. Another was the overwhelming reception his book received when it was published at long last in 1976. Meeting his relatives in Gambia was a high point for Haley. There, Haley was able to link the threads of his grandmother ’s stories with the history of the Kinte clan through the tale of the young man captured by white-faced traders. In an effort to trace that history, the author searched through dozens of archives and eventually found his way to his ancestral village on the Gambia River in West Africa. Haley labored for a dozen years on the project, beginning with only the most slender leads from his grandmother ’s oral history of her family. The path leading to the publication of that powerful story was a long and painful one. Alex Haley simply had one of America ’s, and mankind ’s, most powerful stories to tell. King maintained that in both the print and screen versions, Haley “drew on the deep, natural well-spring of familial love. ” The book topped the nonfiction bestseller lists for six months and has sold briskly ever since. King noted, “At least 130 million Americans, more than half the country, tuned in at least one episode. The original eight-night run of the Roots television show attracted a staggering audience. Indeed, the book and the subsequent television miniseries marked a watershed for the nation. “Few works in the post- World War II era can match the searing impact Roots had on a racially troubled land, ” assessed Mark Goodman in People. Such critics as Essence magazine correspondent Betty Winston Baye hailed the author as “a national treasure importance to the world. It also did more to foster interest in black history and genealogy than any novel before or since. An international bestseller published in more than 30 languages with six million copies sold, Roots made its author a millionaire celebrity. Haley ’s account of his ancestor Kunta Kinte, who was captured by slave traders in 1767 and brought to America against his will, won a special Pulitzer Prize and a citation from the National Book Award committee. Alex Haley's great grandfather was Tom Lee Murray Alex Haley's great grandmother was Arena Murray Alex Haley's great grandfather was George W.The late Alex Haley gave America a bicentennial gift that will not soon be forgotten -his fact-based book Roots: The Saga of an American Family.

Alex haley ancestry