Sorry Kids, But Alex Haley's "Roots" Was A Fraud

From TomPaine.com:

"Let's speak candidly," Gates explained to Alex Beam of the Boston Globe (November 3, 1998). "Most of us feel it's highly unlikely that Alex actually found the village from which his ancestors sprang. Roots is a work of the imagination rather than strict historical scholarship. It was an important event because it captured everyone's imagination." Translation from Gates's buttery diplomatese: Haley was a literary imposter who slicked the discovery of Kunta Kinte, and ripped off black history as well as other writers' words, and I'll be damned to stick him in the Norton just because Roots sold a zillion copies and the miniseries broke Neilsen records. Sometimes race solidarity demands too much.

From Stanley Crouch:

In the early 1980s, when Alex Haley, the author of "Roots," was speaking at Lincoln Center, investigative reporter Philip Nobile asked him a straightforward question. Since he had paid Harold Courlander $650,000 in a plagiarism suit, why shouldn't Haley be considered a criminal instead of a hero? Haley had no answer. Well, what would you expect from someone who had pulled off one of the biggest con jobs in U.S. literary history? Yet the "Roots" hoax has sustained itself. Every PBS station in America refused to show the 1997 BBC documentary inspired by Nobile's reporting on the book.

Since "Roots" has brought millions of black tourist dollars to Gambia, one Gambian said to me, "Yes, it is a lie but it is a good lie."

From Newsense.org:

Last month, The New York Times ran an article commemorating the “Roots” anniversary. After several paragraphs of ritual praise for “Roots” as “timeless,” “eye-opening,” “poetic,” “gripping,” “a great drama” and containing “visual elegance and emotional power,” the article stated that the sense of horror the show engendered in viewers was real, “even if Kunta Kinte’s story did not ‘really happen’ the way Haley depicted it.” After cataloging some of the discrepancies in Haley’s work, the article rescued the author with this telling statement: “None of those details mar the effectiveness of the drama or the essential reality beneath its story. When his facts were challenged, Haley, who died in 1992, began calling his work ‘symbolic history,’ and on the levels of emotional truth and broad historical strokes, ‘Roots’ remains immensely potent.”

This description encapsulates one of the fundamental problems with modern liberalism. Emotions take precedence over facts and the truth is dismissed as mere “details.” The story of “Roots” is false, but that cannot be allowed to hinder the drama’s “essential reality beneath the story.”

For The New York Times, a foundation of specific false claims and historical inaccuracies somehow helps create broad historical strokes of “emotional truth.” The story may not be true, but the emotions of the viewer are, and this fact supposedly negates the story’s falsified premise. Thus we are told that “Roots” ultimately deserves its iconic status because it “remains immensely potent.” Not true, but “potent.”

As it turns out, there is a word for stories that did not “really happen,” but may be emotionally “potent” anyway. That word is “fiction.” There is also a word for “reality beneath the story,” “emotional truth,” and “symbolic history.” That word is “lies.”

Comments

[Rachel]

on the oprah Winfrey show that I saw about 2-3 months ago she was talking about Alex Haley. Shesaid that the story "Roots" was a real life story but it wasn't A.Haley's. It was said that he did put some of his past ancestory's story in "Roots" but he basically plagerised the rest of the story. is this all true?

[Tom McMahon]

Yes, it was plagarized from author Harold Courlander's book The African. If you follow the 3 links in the post, they pretty much tell the whole, sad story. And what's sadder is that even in 2004 "Roots" is still being presented as a true story to a new generation of unsuspecting students.

[trey]

I just read the book ROOTS not too long ago, and yes it was an inspiration to me, especially being as I am a black kid in a 99% white, racist town. I'm now doing a book report on it, and I stumbled onto these many sites stating the plagiarism story. I undertsnad it was wrong of Alex Haley to do this, but it's still a fascinating story. I plan on reading "The African" to get the real story. But..I just want to know if "The African" is a true story or is it fiction also?

[CeCe]

I don't think that Roots is a fraud. It uses some immagination of what African life must have been. As a black person I know how blacks were treated and I know that most whites are trying to deny the fact that Blacks were treated badly. They didn't want to have the blame on what really happened. To my conclusions, only whites would think that it's a fraud becasue they only took blacks as slaves but they didn't see the real life that Africans had.

[CeCe]

I don't think that Roots is a fraud. It uses some immagination of what African life must have been. As a black person I know how blacks were treated and I know that most whites are trying to deny the fact that Blacks were treated badly. They didn't want to have the blame on what really happened. To my conclusions, only whites would think that it's a fraud becasue they only took blacks as slaves but they didn't see the real life that Africans had.

[cwdrummer]

I am sick of all these people saying that only white people are racist. The Blacks were just as racist as the whites were

How so you ask?

Read Roots. Its very racist
They despised the daughter of that girl that returned. The girl who was raped
They hated all whites.....
tell me if thats notracist.

[VA]

Those stories that wee told to Alex Haley by his grandmather and aunties about "Kinte" making a drum, and caught by the slavers and taken to "Naplis" on the Lord Legienierr (sorry for the spelling of the ship). All those tidbits were handed down from generation to generation through pride. What an insult to Alex after all the hard work and research he did to find his family (when he went to Juffere and the old Griot told the history and eventually came to "Kinte" and the oldest, Kunta, was out to look for wood to make a drum, and was never seen again. I believe the story and it has been a huge inspiration to me so please end all this negative talk.

[Tom McMahon]

Roots is a great story, and I hope this discussion doesn't take away from that. It's just that Alex Haley oversold it as being "a true story". And that was a disservice to everybody.

In another sense, you can say the story is true, in the way authors can usually say more in a novel because they won't be sued, which would be the case if they told a "true story".

[JLM]

Sorry VA, but it's almost all fiction. Even a site like martinlutherking.org won't cover for Haley.

http://www.martinlutherking.org/roots.html

Philip Nobile's study of Haley's own notes (after Haley died) show that "Kinte" was never part of any stories from his aunties.

In Haley's own words, it was "mythic", not historical. Even Haley's own friends don't believe Haley found the actual village of his ancestors.

[Jerome Colburn]

Just ran across this by googling "haley roots hoax" upon reading a news story about a "Slavery Reconciliation Walk" that took place in Annapolis "on the 237th anniversary of Kunta Kinte's arrival" there.

Just to comment on your statement "Even a site like martinlutherking.org won't cover for Haley." One and all should know that that site is not exactly MLK-friendly. Much of its content is devoted to calls to repeal the holiday for his birthday on the grounds of his lechery and involvement with Communists.

[Josephine Lindsay Bass]

I just talked to a 64 year old cousin who believed the Haley Roots genealogy "she says you mean it was fraud, why don't people know about this"

So I turned up lots about haley's fraud in google
including this page. Our poor children are being taught lies.............

WHY don't people speak up and debunk lies such as this? The book is pure FICTION!

GOD BLESS THE SOUTH

[LJB]

My family has been doing a lot of genealogical research. It's very complicated, and there are never any guarantees that you've found the real person. Haley's assumptions about Kunta Kinte were no doubt based on a "best guess." There are few proofs of anything when you go back that far. Researching women of any race is almost as difficult as researching blacks. I do not know if Haley's story was based on another man's works. perhaps it was. At any rate, it upsets me that people are calling his novel a "lie" and dismissing it as such. The miniseries probably did more to eradicate prejudice in this country than the work of Martin Luther King Jr. and Malcolm X, combined. That gives it worth that outlasts any fraud the author may have committed, and it more than compensates for any genealogical inaccuracy in Haley's research. Why is everyone so eager to put down an influential and profound work of fiction that changed race relations in our country forever?

[LJB]

Well, I'm back ... and very disgusted. This whole accusation of plagiarism and fraud motivated me to buy and read the book, "The African" by Harold Courlander. I know the "Roots" story very well, having read the book several times as a young adult, and recently revisited the entire TV miniseries. THERE IS NO SIMILARITY AT ALL IN THE PLOT, EVENTS, CHARACTERS, SCENES AND WHATEVER BETWEEN "THE AFRICAN" AND "ROOTS." I did find one little thing: the words, "We are one village." Those words and the philosophy they carried with them sustained Courlander's character throughout his book. The words, "We are one village" were echoed by a character in the original story of Kunta Kinte's transport to America. However, the "village" theme wasn't carried through consistently in Alex Haley's book. How this guy managed to pilfer $650,000 from Haley based on an accusation of plagiarism is totally beyond me. If in doubt about this, just go read Courlander's book. It is very good, but it is no WAY like the Kunta Kinte story. IMHO, the plagiarism charge is totally bogus and it ought to be exposed for what it is, not repeated on reputable websites.

As for the MLK website, Mr. McMahon, people should go and visit it. Here's a link:http://www.martinlutherking.org/roots.html

Just scroll to the bottom and access the discussion forum, hosted by a group called "White Pride Worldwide" with the names of David Duke and Juergen Graf in bold letters at the top.

I am not in any position to defend the accuracy of Haley's story. I have no idea how much was fiction (probably quite a bit --genealogical research wouldn't tell him that much) and how much was fact. Does it matter? It was published as fiction, anyways, so what's the point in getting worked up about it? Whether fiction or fact, the book has had a huge impact on race relations in the United States and it ought to be honored for what it is.

[db]

uhm, so what. its made up.. people acknowledge that.

how many of john fords movies were 'based on a true story'? how about the movie 'shattered glass' which invents characters and combines others? how about 'patton', how about 'saving private ryan', or more relevant, how about 'band of brothers' which was actually based on a plagiarized book? how about a million other artistic works that have spurious links to reality?

i guess its OK if the subject is 'important', like WWII, etc, but not OK if its about slavery????

heres a bigger problem: i dont recall too many movies about the slave experience.... this 'gap' in our national mindset and film archive is 1000 times worse a factual error than Haleys plagiarism.

Now as for him threatening villagers, thats a crime but i want to see some hard evidence about this. Then maybe you can go after Cecil B Demille for all the extras he killed making his epics.

And by the way , 'Birth of a Nation' is based on a bunch of lies as well, and they still teach it in film school.

[Madman]

How does this explain the fact that in the early 1970s, sometime before the book Roots came out, Readers' Digest did a story on Haley which clearly showed a younger Haley (obviously photographed around 1967) with a group of people who were clearly African in front of a hut. The caption of the photo was that these were the people in Gambia from whom Haley heard the Kinte story.

Also, Huey Newton of the Black Panther movement mentioned in a 1971 essay (in his book "To Die For the People" which was published the following year) how he had a conversation with Alex Haley about his discovery in Africa. Both of these were several years before the book itself came out.

A good person to ask if all of this was fake would be George Sims (the researcher Haley credits in the book and movie version of "Roots" as his research assistant) and some of the other African history experts that Haley also credited in the book.

[JS]

It certainly appears that Mr. Hailey "stole" the story of Kunta Kinte. Yes, the story has done wonders for the African world, but it remains to this day that Alex Hailey wrote it. Alex Hailey is tauted as a rightous person, which I would have absolutely no problem with... -if he wrote the story himself- We are wronging our children in the education system by teaching "Roots" by Alex Hailey, and not "The African". Sure, Roots is written better, but I'd rather read poorly written literature than excellently written forgeries.

Oh, and my thoughts on the whole "racism" mullarcky, Get over it. The story portrays both races as racist. It was a common fact in those days.

[Nagarajan]

I just finished reading 'Roots' by Alex Hailey. I found it interesting, moving and exciting, exactly in the same order. I found it really adventurous to read Mr. Hailey's epilogue. YES, it makes me feel a bit difficult to comprehend as to the accuracy of tracing Mr. Hailey's root to 200 years back to a remote village in Africa. As to the rest, it was a great book.

[Tom McMahon]

Nagarajan, you are absolutely correct. I think as time goes by Roots will just be judged as a story, not as a documentary. But when it first came out it was oversold as a true story, and that lie has done great disservice to the underlying Truth of the story.

[Trina Reynolds-Tyler]

i think that alex haley might not have told the whole truth but to write a book loger than 500 pages you would have to make up some things. I think that he was maybe related to kunte kinte but that really did happen to slave back in those days. I don't care what tom says. i think that it happened maybe not to his family but to slave so it don't matter if he was related to him or not what matters is that it happeed.

[angie]

i am a white woman and watched the roots when i was a teenager.i dont really care if anyone is trying to discredit alex haleys accounts to b untrue.i believe that the general contents of how badly black people were treated were true.the white man did steal black from thier homes and used them as slaves.so yes ive bought the dvd collection and made all members of my family watch it and anyone else who i feel needs 2 b educated on how they have no rights 2 complain about the black people being in what say thier country.when the white man forced alot of them over here 2 treat them like dirt.so well done mr hayley i am a true fan

[MLG]

Blacks and whites want to comment about Alex Haley's story "Roots." I believe the problem stems whenever a Black man makes an impact in the world. The white man wants to find fault and let the rest of the world know of the Black man's mishap. The years of oppression African Americans encountered over the past four centuries and being shipped to a country without their mother's and father's surfaced from Alex Haley's "Roots." He wanted Black people to know the truth about Euro Americans and the reason they treated us like animals,changed our names,raped our women,and sold us to other whites. The only story that BLacks can relate to and feel any significance as to how we arrived in America after being stripped from our homeland Africa is the story Roots.

[wistma]

Check out this link. Tom Sowell has some interesting input on the subject of "Roots." http://www.capmag.com/article.asp?ID=1384

[White Slave]

For a little perspective, Africans enslaved white Europeans before America even existed.
In the 15th and 16th centuries slaves were imported from Europe to North Africa. Slave-taking persisted into the 19th century when Barbary pirates would capture ships and enslave the crew. In all, about 1.5 million Europeans were transported to the Barbary Coast. It was a period when Europe was preoccupied by sectarian wars and European navies were depleted. The trade was run by expelled Moors and the slaving expeditions were often captained by Europeans with North African crews. In the early 19th century, European powers started to take action to free Christian slaves. The first major action was the bombardment of Algiers in 1816.

Slavery persists in Africa more than in all other continents. Slavery in Mauritania was legally abolished by laws passed in 1905, 1961, and 1981, but several human rights organizations are reporting that the practice continues there. The trading of children has been reported in modern Nigeria and Benin. In parts of Ghana, a family may be punished for an offense by having to turn over a virgin female to serve as a sex slave within the offended family. In this instance, the woman does not gain the title of "wife". In the Sudan, slavery continues as part of an ongoing civil war. Evidence emerged in the late 1990s of systematic slavery in cacao plantations in West Africa.

[Craig Sumsky]

If the book is proven fake, it should be simply moved to the fiction shelf. Stanley Crouch strikes me as an honest guy and the facts seem to point to something not being kosher. It's still a good story though. So Kunta Kinte will fade into historic myth along with King Arthur, Robin Hood, heck even Jesus himself.

As far as this slave arguement goes... give it up. Let's suppose we were all slaves at some point in history. Hakuna Mattata its in the past get over it. I am convinced it will take an invasion from outer space aliens to make us realize we are all the same.

[kish/von]

We've read the book and watched the movie. First of all no word is actually our own and no one discovered anyhthing(So the argument about what started what isn't the issue and the issue is that african Americans should have an idea where we all come from.And if any body was a fraud Christopher Columbus discovering America when the Native Americans were there first.Now they should call that fictional(meaning not true}.