Find the Good and Praise It: The Story of Alex Haley

Alex Haley was a patriot, a writer and a hero to many. His book, "Roots: The Saga of an American Family," revolutionized the way we all look at our family trees, but even more than that, Roots was able to show the world the trials and tribulations of slavery in America. "Find the Good and Praise It: The Story of Alex Haley” chronicles the incredible life of America’s storyteller from his humble beginnings in a small town in West Tennessee to his life in the Coast Guard and so much more.
More of his story, here: bit.ly/3UZbeFk
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00:00 Intro
00:52 Early life and family
02:09 Where Haley became a storyteller
04:25 Joining the Coast Guard
05:52 First writing jobs at sea
07:50 The Seafarer
09:39 Coronet magazine
11:17 The Harlem Nobody Knows
11:39 Retiring from the Coast Guard
12:10 Hustling in New York City
13:18 Reader's Digest
13:45 Mr. Muhammad Speaks
14:33 Playboy magazine
15:06 Interview with Miles Davis
16:17 Interview with Malcolm X
17:42 Interview with Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
20:10 Haley's most memorable Playboy interview
24:41 The Autobiography of Malcolm X
28:41 Haley traces his roots
30:38 Haley goes to Gambia
32:33 Writing Roots
33:42 Roots The Saga of an American Family
34:08 Roots the miniseries
40:27 Roots' controversy
44:07 Haley at the 1982 World's Fair in Knoxville
44:55 Haley moves to East Tennessee
47:29 Haley's Appalachian epic
51:33 Haley's dies at 73
55:20 Queen The Story of an American Family
55:47 Advocating for Alex Haley Heritage Square in Knoxville
57:32 Children's Defense Fund
59:01 Building Alex Haley Heritage Square in Knoxville
01:00:27 Unveiling the Alex Haley statue
01:01:24 Alex Haley's materials up for auction
01:01:55 Haley Collections at UT Libraries
01:03:34 Haley's desk lands in Virginia
01:05:17 Alex Haley's legacy in the Coast Guard
01:06:07 Alex Haley leaves a footprint
01:06:51 The legacy of Roots
01:07:46 Find the good and praise it

[@jeremycunningham7897]

God bless u Alex. Roots the tv series + then especially the book literally changed my life. Can’t ever thank u enough - the older I get the bigger the debt to u I realise I owe. Rest easy man. You’re forever a legend

[@2628meme]

GOD BLESS U !!!U ARE ONE OF THE GREATEST AMERICAN OF ALL TIME !! I FIRST SEEN ROOTS IN THE 4th grade it blew me away it was amazing the funny thing my Dad gave my sister the name KIZZY I WENT HOME AND SAID MY SISTER WAS A SLAVE NO ONE KNEW WHAT I WAS TALKING ABOUT THEY LAUGH AND WHEN I TOLD THEM MY DAD SAID HE GAVE MY SISTER THAT NAME HE THOUGHT SHE WAS A BEAUTIFUL WOMAN IN THE MOVIE AND MY SISTER WAS BORN THE SAME YEAR THE MOVIE CAME OUT 💯🙏🏽❤️❤️❤️ MR. HALEY U HAVE SHOW US ANOTHER WORLD IF U DID NOT PUT ROOTS AND QUEEN AND OTHERS BLACKS WOULD NOT KNOW THE TRUE MEANING OF BEING BLACK U SHOWED US WE ARE SOMEBODY AND GOD IS NUMBER ONE …. THANK U THANK U 🙏🏽 ❤️❤️❤️💯💯💯

[@nyreedix1719]

Ive read both Roots n Queen both wonderful reads😊

[@marcychan168]

This is a Man I greatly respect and admire. And his story telling of History was marvelous and absolutely riveting. Listen to your elders children They have stories to tell you That without these stories being told - it is indeed like a library burning down - history lost. Dear Sir Thank you Rest in Peace🙏

[@JesuSaves79]

FAMILY IS THE FOUNDATION OF SOCIETY

[@patticakes5439]

What an awesome human being, he accomplished so much in his life time. Thanks for everything that you contributed to this world Alex Haley. Rest in paradise legend

[@deloreswillis9224]

Amen 🙏🏿

[@user-nc2bf9vx5y]

My youngest brother who now works for WSSU actually got to talk with Alex Haley years ago. He really enjoyed his discussion with him. My baby brother is one of the best folks ever and so was Alex Haley.

[@carollewis2174]

I watched Roots the movie and read Roots the book. I cried through most of the movie. Roots opened up my mind, and I wonder--what's the real story about what really happened to my ancestors ?

[@deloreswillis9224]

Sadly I did 2😢

[@tinadaugherty9073]

The book " Roots" opened our minds, thoughts & opinions of the Black Afro-Americans that in all of our school history books either couldn't or wouldn't dare print & publish, Alex Haley did accomplish successfully. Beautiful documentarian.

[@abdulazizclare9545]

He lived in Jamaica for some years before Roots came out. My mothers good friend we would see him in Negril at his house.

[@damali-karlawhittaker6462]

💐💐💐💐💐💐WELL DESERVED flowers! God Bless Alex Haley!

[@juliemccauslin5807]

I knew slavery existed, but I had no clue the horrors it really was until I was 12. Roots hit the TV. I cried through most of it, angry through the rest with moments of happiness and asked lots of questions to any adult at my school who would listen. I still don't understand why it has ever existed 😢

[@Mathilda5xp]

Hatred towards people with 'Black' skins! The most terrible thing is how so-called Christians could and can say they love Jesus, attend church every Sunday, then hate people with black and brown skins. Do you know that during the Apartheid era in South Africa, Black people were told by the Afrikaners, that they were not created by God! Only so-called white people were created by God! What an abomination against the Word of God. Jahweh CREATED EVERY HUMAN, IRRESPECTIVE OF THEIR SKIN COLOUR!! No one has ever seen God. How do we know His skin is not Pitch Black? We will only see on Judgement Day, when He comes down on the clouds. Jesus was not a white Jew. His skin colour was brown!

[@JustHadToKnow]

Slavery existed in America primarily due to economic factors. This system was supported by social, legal, and political structures that dehumanized African people and justified their enslavement to maintain economic profitability and societal hierarchy.

[@AngelaKHarrell]

I cannot tell you how much this has touched me. As a writer, I enjoy hearing the process that other writers engage but Mr. Haley had such a uniqueness to his works and his thought process. I can only hope one day, I can do the same. May he continue to be a griot and RIH always.

[@abenawilliams6623]

Thankyou for this😊

[@nyreedix1719]

Thank you sooooooo much for showing this documenty

[@pamelalabriado6735]

It's a very necessary contribution to America's history 🎉a benchmark tò many and an eye opener for most!

[@carolynkingsley4421]

One of the best articles that I ever read by Mr. Haley, was published in Writer's Digest. He said: I consider writing one of the great professions of the world. I list it right along with medicine and law. if I could pick any profession on the face of this earth, I would still be a writer. He went on to say: If you're a writer, no matter what your level of education, you are a professional person.

[@melaniem5971]

Beautiful story!

[@deloreswillis9224]

Yesssssssssss

[@MrTaurus48228]

Yes roots open my mind when 10 years ago, something i never knew at that time.

[@yourfinalhiringagency3890]

Did you ever learn he apparently plagiarized the story?

[@ifeelbetterabouthis.louis3]

Yeah, you meant opening your mind lies and misleadings

[@Mathilda5xp]

@@yourfinalhiringagency3890 On every documentary channel of Alex Haley, you blacken his name! Alex owned up and paid the other writer a huge amount of money! Why don't you grow up! You must have a very low IQ! An infant-adult mind! Alex Haley was a brilliant writer! May his soul rest in peace! Blessings and aroha to all his family!

[@natashawall8131]

Roots: The Saga, Roots: The Next Generation, and Queen were amazing novels. So proud to own Roots. So proud to own The Autobiography of Malcolm X.

[@eunicemurray8482]

I remember I was a very young teen in Jamaica and it was the talk of the black Radio and T V personal about this man .His book and after the T V drama

[@bonitahobbs2374]

I got an opportunity to talk to him and meet him at The Historical Little Rock Central High School where he was speaking about all the extensuve research he was doing for a book about his family which became " ROOTS" "QUEEN" and other true stories about his family's ROOTS from Africa! We talked face to face and he gave me good advice and his autograpg. This happened in 1973 but ,more likely in 1974'.

[@user-zn3cj8lt8t]

Roots and Queen, the stories to Kunta Kinte and Queen, his ancestors

[@thaddeuspannell4466]

All lies he is a liar 😮

[@MizKimmy]

I enjoyed this doc very much ❤ I'm watching from work in San Francisco

[@MrTaurus48228]

Nice story asked well, thanks

[@ernestined.lawrence9514]

It was 1979 and I was just entering the League bright eyed and eager! I knew Didley! By the time I left and Mr. Jordan retired, I knew I was somebody special! Ahh yeah, the league days of old when a black business could franchise into wealth! Thank you Mr. V. Jordan! Wow! Wow, 62nd and York, New York! Hey EBBY booty! I loves y’all! Thank God for NY!

[@Lady_Clare4]

Great information!❤

[@AutonyB]

Love him miss him and more history daily

[@yourfinalhiringagency3890]

Roots was plagiarized

[@ifeelbetterabouthis.louis3]

​@yourfinalhiringagency3890 yeah Alex was a fraud

[@ifeelbetterabouthis.louis3]

Alex is in a very hot place forever 😂

[@ebierekoroye2327]

Cream always rises to the top.

[@lizoconnor2752]

❤ u Alex❤

[@morehyeshiahhistorylessons94]

I like the book Roots

[@Ravenoflight2275]

What a great African American Hero , May Alex Haley never be forgotten.

[@doreenchristie9321]

Loved it

[@pamelalabriado6735]

Love historprograms

[@kareemhesham2215]

So was Alex Haley really a palgiariser or were they actually jealous of him?

[@deloreswillis9224]

Ikr

[@CymoneHicks-lz6fz]

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

[@kareemhesham2215]

When he was in Washington going throuhg the microfiche, he didn't see the name of Kunta Kinte. He saw the name of his great grandfather Tom Murray the blacksmith, his wife Irene, their daughters who were the great aunts, and the youngest of them was Elizabeth whom he used to call Aunt Liz. His grandma Cynthia hadn't been born yet. This was in the census records of Alamance County, North Carolina.

[@Mathilda5xp]

Awesome information. Thank you so much for sharing @Kareemhesham. God bless you.🙏🙏❤❤

[@lindasavage1042]

Very interesting anď informative thank you

[@deloreswillis9224]

4 sure❤

[@raymondwaters9252]

Full of cliffhangers just like Captain Marvel and the Lone Ranger in the old theaters I’ll tell you how old is big mansion it’s nothing but money in the bottom of it all

[@MrTaurus48228]

I mean when I was 10 years old

[@juliemccauslin5807]

Fun fact: Levar Burton recently discovered that he has a white great-grandfather, and let's just say that he was NOT happy because it was too close of a relation

[@umb2692]

He died 3 days after I was born in 1992😢

[@McdanielOneal-ph4jm]

😊😮

[@MinisterStretch]

Malcolm X mother was not white

[@pamsimth8018]

She was mixed with white and black

[@umb2692]

Right I no she was really light I thought she was Grenadian

[@deloreswillis9224]

You are correct

[@serious_philosopheegeez2294]

He had to settle a legal dispute because he plagiarized this.

[@user-nb5kp1mw2q]

The falt

[@user-nb5kp1mw2q]

The falt the faculty the movie

[@ashleykg3322]

Wasn’t Roots proven to be plagiarized?

[@umb2692]

Lamar is a white guy 😮

[@user-bs8hm6bq3e]

It's a shame to know a person was being judged do to their color of their skin unjust laws in place to hold a human bean down

[@user-bs8hm6bq3e]

Mr. Haley talking about he is a writer or think of himself first I think not your race come first not a career

[@UrialTheDarkOne]

In 1977 Alex Haley lost a plagiarism lawsuit sighting he had copied heavily from "The African" by Harold Courlander (a white author) Haley also, later in life, admitted "Roots" wasn't as true as he had claimed and that he "embellished" things because he wanted young black kids to have a folk hero to inspire them. The book (and subsequent tv miniseries) was not even remotely true or historically accurate.

[@MTknitter22]

Yes but even though he might have had good intentions, he plagiarized another’s work and he did lie. He accepted accolades for things that were not true.

[@pamsimth8018]

Maybe 🤔 so but he got black people thinking

[@Mathilda5xp]

IT COULD BE THE OTHER WAY ROUND AS TO WHO STOLE FROM WHO!

[@llowwdowwnnwilliams6964]

He stole that fiction story,I'm sitting here coming to terms that I'm an American Indian, not African American

[@Myopinionmattersthemost]

Roots is based upon his family and his family history. There's embellishments because he wasn't alive when his ancestors experienced being enslaved.

[@Simon-pl2zi]

While slavery was a factual and horrible historical event, it’s a well established fact that most of Haley's 'factual' claims in Roots were a work of fiction. In 1978, Alex Haley was sued for plagiarism for stealing the plot and storyline from The African, a book written by Harold Courlander. Haley paid Courlander a cash settlement. Also, Murray Fisher was the ghost writer of Roots, so it was Fisher's excellent writing style that Haley took credit for. In 1976 when Roots was first published, Haley claimed in promotional interviews and articles that Roots was a factual account of his own ancestry, based on years of genealogical research. He claimed Kunta Kinte was his direct ancestor. However genealogists have easily disproven Haley's claims, showing that Toby Waller was not Kunta Kinte, and Chicken George was not Tom Lea's son. In fact, outside of Haley's 'oral tradition' there is no historical evidence that proves Kinte or George ever existed. Positioning Roots as ancestral fact, was a good way to sell books but basically Haley lied to his own community for money. There is a lot of other misinformation in Roots, and none of that diminishes or justifies slavery of Africans in America. However, Roots served only to anger the black community and caused greater guilt and more division, by making it appear that slavery was purely a white man crime, when we know this is completely false. At the time Roots was set in more Africans were being captured, enslaved, sold and killed by dominant African tribes than by Europeans. 90% of the 12 million Africans shipped to America were sold to the Europeans by powerful, opportunistic African tribes.

[@Mathilda5xp]

0 seconds ago Oh well, just as greedy and opportunistic as the 'White' American Plantation owners who treated the 'Black ' slaves worse than animals. They were not given food, or clothes. They Had to work bare feet in freezing cold weather. Girls as young as 10, 11 and 12 years old were raped by the Plantation owners. The slaves were never compensated for all the beautiful buildings that they built on the Plantations including their hard work on the cotton fields, during the week. They were not allowed to attend church to worship God, and neither were their children given any education. Children as young as 5years old, (Mere babies), had to work on the cotton fields. When any slaves escaped, they were nearly flogged to death after they were captured! That is how much the plantation owners hated the 'Black' people! Yet, the slave owners called themselves Christians! But there is going to be a JUDGEMENT DAY, and then we will see what God is going to do to them, because GOD CREATED ALL MEN EQUAL! He is a God of Justice! SLAVERY OF OTHER HUMANS IS EVIL!!!

[@latreace11]

Alex is a liar . The story of roots he was sued for look it up.

[@desertodavid]

Sorry, overall I'm really enjoying this. But there's one sour apple in the bunch and that's the guy with the black and white checkered shirt and the horse teeth who keeps staring into the abyss when he talks he adds virtually nothing to the content and in fact it's just an annoyance in my humble opinion.

[@opticscolossalandepicvideo4879]

He was a liar and he stole the book and ripped off the story

[@pamsimth8018]

Probably 🤔 but he had black people thinking and I'm glad he did

[@Mathilda5xp]

@@pamsimth8018 Well said.

[@raymondwaters9252]

Amen brother anybody with a brain could see through that it’s all Hollywood I guess she had been living during those times they needed something to rally around marching 34:06 through the alleys With sticks chanting roots roots roots roots to me it was just one means of Replacing one brand of heat with another I’m sure a lot of money was made off of it a great man once said love one another as I have loved you

[@opticscolossalandepicvideo4879]

@@raymondwaters9252 he stole that book

[@Mathilda5xp]

Well done Alex Haley! You were a brilliant writer! Rest in Peace. You exposed the truth of what happened to your forefathers.

[@yourfinalhiringagency3890]

Why don’t they report on the authors Haley stole from instead of the criminal?

[@MTknitter22]

It is very sad that generally truth gets covered up about Hailey. His lies and plagiarism greatly tainted the Roots lrgacy.