Haley pieced together historical records to connect his lineage to a slave named Toby, who Haley believed was his ancestor who had arrived on that ship. Slave ship records placed the 1767 arrival of a ship called the Lord Ligonier in Annapolis, Maryland. Work with a linguist revealed the family language to be Mandinka, spoken by the West African Mandingo people of the Gambia. In an era when most African Americans assumed it was impossible to track down proof of their ancestor’s origins, which had been swept away by more than a century of slavery and racial persecution, Haley’s doggedness led to remarkable results. Curious to see if the African phrases passed down by his family could be used similarly to unlock his own family history, Haley set out a decade-long journey across America and Europe, visiting nearly 50 libraries and archives.
While visiting London’s British Museum in 1964, he was struck by the story of the Rosetta Stone, the multi-lingual slab that helped researchers crack the code of Egyptian hieroglyphics, opening a new window on a “lost” world. The inspiration for “Roots” came to Haley in an unlikely place. Kunta Kinte (LeVar Burton) from “Roots.” (Credit: ABC Photo Archives/Getty Images) Published in 1965, “The Autobiography of Malcolm X” put Haley on the map, selling more than 6 million copies to date. An interview with Malcolm X led to an offer to ghost write the controversial civil rights leader’s memoirs, which Haley finished just weeks before Malcolm’s assassination. After leaving the service, Haley began a successful freelance career, contributing pieces to Reader’s Digest, TIME magazine and even interviewing musician Miles Davis for the first issue of Playboy. He turned to writing, eventually rising to become the Coast Guard’s chief journalist.
Coast Guard, where he would serve for the next 20 years. Palmer traced her ancestors to the mid-18th century arrival of the “furthest-back” person in America, an African called “Toby” by his slave owners.Ī talented, though indifferent, student, 18-year-old Haley bypassed college, and on the eve of World War II enlisted in the U.S.
He spent the summers of his youth at the side of his grandmother, Cynthia Palmer, absorbing stories of his maternal bloodline, including snippets of a presumed-lost African language that had been passed down through the generations. (Credit: Fred Mott/Getty Images)īorn in 1921 and raised in Ithaca, New York, and Henning, Tennessee, Haley was the son of a homemaker mother and an academic father who taught at universities throughout the South.
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