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From the University of Texas at Austin,
KUT radio, this is in Black America.

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The question is asked of me as
a view in different ways and.

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I am quick to say that I don't feel we
should go around saying as many do that.

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You know it is worse than it ever
was and this and that and the other.

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'cause that that's simply not true.

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I think that the more near the truth
is that we have come a long way

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since the sixties or the forties
or the thirties or whatever longer.

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The further back you go,
the longer way we have come.

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But that equally clearly we should
say we yet have a long way to go.

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And I think that's where it is.

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We are in some interim.

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Stage and state.

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I don't know exactly where along
the way it is, and neither do you.

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Nobody does, but we are.

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We have Come a long way.

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Alexander Murray Palmer, Haley
biographer, script writer and novelist.

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Haley is best known as the author of
Roots, the Saga of an American family,

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and the autobiography of Malcolm X.

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As a young boy, he first learned
of his African ancestor Kente

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by listening to family stories
of his maternal grandparents.

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While spending his summer in Henning,
Tennessee after 12 years, Harold's

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Quest to learn more about his family
history resulted in him writing the

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Pulitz Surprise Winning Book Roots.

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The book has been published in 37
languages and was made into the first

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week long television miniseries viewed
by an estimated 130 million people.

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Roots also generated widespread
interest in genealogy.

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In 1939, Haley's writing career began
when he entered the US Coast Guard.

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He was the first member of the US Coast
Guard with a journalist designation.

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In 1999, the US Coast Guard on
Haley by naming a Coast Guard cutter

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after him, Haley's personal model
quote, find the good and praise it.

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End the quote appears on the ship emblem.

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He retired from the military
after 20 years of service

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and then continued writing.

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Ha was a fascinating storyteller and
was in great demand as a lecturer

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both nationally and internationally.

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He was on a lecture tour in Seattle,
Washington when he died of a heart

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attack on February 10th, 1992.

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He was seven years old.

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I'm John L. Hansen Jr. And welcome
to another edition of In Black

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America on this week's program.

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A tribute to the late Alex Palmer Haley.

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In black America.

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Well, it was mostly having begun,
and then the more you got, the

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more deeply you got into it.

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You.

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We're kind of in a position
that if you didn't go on, you

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may as well never have started.

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You know, you just have such a,
an, uh, incremental investment.

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Uh, and also the, the, the, the
challenge, you know, uh, you, you are

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really kind of at that time fighting
a bit of a battle with yourself.

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As to whether or not you've done something
worthwhile or something dumb or whatever.

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And I was frequently having people say
to me how dumb this whole thing was.

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You know, there were people who said that.

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Uh uh, for one thing I guess I heard
most frequently of all would come from

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black scholars who happened to, I would
go talking with them about it for one

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another reason, and a great many of them.

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Uh, had the view of what do you
want to resurrect slavery for?

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And it got to the point that
I really quit talking too much

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about what I was doing, and it was
principally a personal challenge

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to see how far could I go with it?

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Alex Haley served in the Coast
Guard during World War ii, the

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Korean conflict and the Cold War.

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He was the first African American
coast guardmen in the modern era.

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To reach the rank of Chief Petty
Officer, he paved the way for other

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African American men and women
to rise into the senior enlisted

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ranks in the Naval Services Hell.

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He also holds a distinction of being the
First Coast Guardsman to be distinguished.

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The specialty rank of journalists
in recognition of his able service

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to the Coast Guards and Naval
public Affairs and history programs.

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This was a significant position
of responsibility for shaping the

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public image of the Coast Guard and
reporting news within the service.

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And it broke the previous tradition
of African, African-American sailors

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serving almost exclusively in
menial jobs as cooks and stewards.

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Haiti began his writing career
with assignment with Reader's

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Digest and Playboy Magazine,
where he conducted interviews.

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During this time, he met Malcolm
X, then the spokesperson for

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Elijah Muhammad's Nation of Islam.

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Lady was asked by Malcolm
X to write his life story.

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The result of that collaboration, the
autobiography of Malcolm X was published

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in 1965 and sold 6 million copies.

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Haley was born on August 11th,
1921 in Ithaca, New York.

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Soon after his birth, he moved
to he Tennessee at the age of 15.

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He graduated from high school
at at Alcorn State University

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in Mississippi for two years.

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His father persuaded him
to join the Coast Guard.

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He enlisted in 1939 in January, 1977.

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For eight consecutive nights, 130 million
viewers watched the groundbreaking

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history making saga of an American
family who did not come over on the

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Mayflower or pass through Ellis Island.

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Ruth, the story of CTA Kinte, a West
African enslaved in this country,

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and his descendant captivated the
American television audience as

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no other dramatic program had done
before in February, 1988 on a visit

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to Central Texas in black America.

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Spoke with Alex Haley.

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Well, a whole variety of things.

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Um, I have.

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Spoken a lot.

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I have fought the Battle of
Correspondence as, as best I can.

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And simply to say that, you know,
you get so much mail that comes

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from people asking things which
are very, very personal to them.

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And I'm very close to my mail and
I hate not to respond to letters.

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So I try my best to answer
as much as I can and still

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don't do probably half of it.

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And then I have written some enough
that, uh, I have, I'm about at this.

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Time about, uh, two weeks away from
finishing my next book, the book,

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which will be titled Henning, which
is the name of my little hometown

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in Tennessee, and it should be
turned into the publishers about.

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Four weeks from now after I've been
able to do two weeks work on it.

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I recently returned from Africa and I
got a very good feeling when I got to

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Senegal and had an opportunity to go to
Gory Island and and see the Slave House.

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When you went back and doing the
research for Roots, what type

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of an emotional feeling that
you feel going back to Africa?

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Well, you know, you're kind of in.

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Kind of in awe really if you know
the full significance of where

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you are when you are at Go Ray.

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But lemme tell you something about you.

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I was thinking when I walked in
that door, I guess you did get an

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emotional feeling because if you
are around tribes in Africa enough,

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you get to sort of get some general
feeling about tribal configurations,

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you know, faith and all that.

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And I would bet you if anything
that if it were possible.

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You could trace yourself
back to your Kunta Kente.

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I'll bet you anything you came from the
wall off tribe, you look like a wall off.

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That's what they told me when I was in

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Chicago.

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I know Village.

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They wouldn't know you left home.

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That's the truth.

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You really do have very,
very clear wall off features.

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When researching roots, what gave
you the inspiration and the energy

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to undertake such a difficult task?

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Well, it was mostly.

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Having begun.

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And then the more you got, the
more deeply you got into it.

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You were kind of in a position
that if you didn't go on, you

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may as well never have started.

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You know, you just have such a,
an, uh, incremental investment.

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Uh, and also the, the, the, the
challenge, you know, uh, you, you are

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really kind of at that time fighting
a bit of a battle with yourself.

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As to whether or not you've done something
worthwhile or something dumb or whatever.

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And I was frequently having people say
to me how dumb this whole thing was.

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You know, there were people who said that.

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Uh uh, for one thing, I guess I heard
most frequently of all would come from

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black scholars who happened to, I would
go talking with them about it for one

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another reason and agreed many of them.

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Uh, had the view of what do you
want to resurrect slavery for?

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And it got to the point that
I really quit talking too much

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about what I was doing, and it was
principally a personal challenge

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to see how far could I go with it.

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I was astounded that I had been
able to get as far as I did at

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certain points because it really
all had been, had begun with.

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Stories told on the front porch of
the living room by my grandmother

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and her sisters about the family.

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And, uh, you know, my brother George,
about George was about two years

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old when I first heard the story of
the, the family, going back to the

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person whom they called, quote the
African, who said his name was Kente.

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And that meant about as much as, you
know, as, as nothing to me in one sense.

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And those stories which they told
about the family in my mind were

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sort of corollary to another set of
stories I heard in a different locale,

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and that was biblical parables.

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You know, like you, where are you from?

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I mean, natively,

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right?

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Natively from Detroit.

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Oh Lord, that, well anyway, um, I guess
you all had Sunday school in Detroit

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too, but we sure did in, in Tennessee.

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But you know, you tend to learn these
things early and I, I often think about

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it and I sometimes say when talking
that, um, I guess when I was about.

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11 years old.

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By that time, my head was a jumble of
stories that I had heard from adults

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from one another locale, and it was
kind of mixed up like I would, you

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know, chicken George and David and
Goliath, and Miss Kizzy and Moses.

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They were all kind of mixed up in there
and I would have had to stop and think

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about where some of them came from.

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And in that way, six

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sisters gathered who had not seen
each other since they were girls.

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They were now, with one exception,
all grandmothers, like my

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grandmother, they all began to act
in ways I can remember so vividly.

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As I say, they hadn't seen each other
in all these years, and they used to

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at times right there in the house,
particularly during the mornings, any

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two of them would walk up to each other
and just kinda standing and look at

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each other, and then they would put
hands on each other's shoulders and just

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kinda shake each other and just laugh.

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They were so happy to see each
other again after all these years.

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And then it would generally be in
the evening after supper, as we

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called it, and you do too here.

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The evening meal, they would wash
the dishes and they would kind of

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filter out onto the front porch.

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In time terms, it would be about
as dusk, deepen into early night.

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There were lots of honeysuckle
vines right outside the porch.

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And they were, you know what?

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Lightning bugs.

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They had lightning bugs all
over their honeysuckles.

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And you know how Honeysuckle vine
smell that thick, sweet smell, just

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early dark, and there were lots of
rocking chairs on the front porch.

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And anybody, any of the ladies
sat in any chair except nobody.

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But grandma said in her white
wick a rocking chair, and I always

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stood right behind her chair.

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It seemed to me I should
be close to grandma.

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I always had the little boy feeling I
should protect her since grandpa was gone.

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And the first thing, it sounds sort of
crazy, but I, I remember it so well.

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It seemed that the first thing was they
had to get all the rocking together.

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You know, some people have a quick rock
and others have a sort of slow language

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rock and they'd have to get these
chairs synchronized the way they moved.

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And then I remember so well sitting
there, they would all start running

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their hands down in the apron pocket.

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And coming up with these little shiny
tin cans of Sweet Garrett snuff, and

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they would load up these lower lips and,
and, and after a while they'd take these

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little practice shots and, um, and easily
the champion in that department was my

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great aunt Liz, who, who had come in from
somewhere called Oak Mulee, Oklahoma.

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And, um, Ann Liz could drop a lightning
bug at six yards when she got, you know.

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Once they got everything settled and
rocking and the snuff, they would

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just start talking and our little
boy was sitting there listening.

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And night after night after night
in no given order, but just sort

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of mixing it around, talking
bit of this and a bit of that.

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They would talk about the family.

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They seemed to have nothing that
interested them as much as the history

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of their own family, although nobody
thought of it as formal terms as history.

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They were just talking
about their own family.

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They talked about their, their
father and mother, Tom Murray or

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Blacksmith and his wife Irene.

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00:14:11,340 --> 00:14:16,020
And then they talked about the plantation
in Alamance County, North Carolina,

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where they had lived and where their
father and mother had been slaves.

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And they talk about old Masa and
old Mrs. Murray who had owned them.

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And I remember as a little boy, it
just sort of struck me as funny.

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00:14:26,610 --> 00:14:27,750
All, I didn't say anything.

227
00:14:27,750 --> 00:14:29,520
Kids never, you didn't say anything then.

228
00:14:29,520 --> 00:14:31,230
Older people talking,
you kept your mouth shut.

229
00:14:31,740 --> 00:14:35,910
But um, I would wonder to myself, it
was so funny about somebody owning

230
00:14:35,910 --> 00:14:37,650
somebody, it just didn't sound right.

231
00:14:38,370 --> 00:14:39,375
And then they would talk.

232
00:14:40,050 --> 00:14:43,560
They would start sometimes shaking
their heads and make remarks

233
00:14:43,560 --> 00:14:45,270
like, oh, he was just scandalous.

234
00:14:45,720 --> 00:14:51,150
And that was a preface to start to talk
about the deeds of all sorts of daring do,

235
00:14:51,150 --> 00:14:55,350
and something they used to call, sounded
terrible, called womanizing and so forth.

236
00:14:55,500 --> 00:14:59,100
And they were talking about their
grandfather, somebody called Chicken

237
00:14:59,130 --> 00:15:01,050
George that used to fight cocks.

238
00:15:01,845 --> 00:15:06,285
And then they would on occasion talk
about his mother, who was very quiet.

239
00:15:06,495 --> 00:15:09,705
They said, never had a whole lot to
say, but when she would talk, people

240
00:15:09,705 --> 00:15:13,275
listened closely in her name, they
called her Miss Kizzy, and then they

241
00:15:13,275 --> 00:15:14,985
would talk about Miss Izzy's father.

242
00:15:14,985 --> 00:15:17,925
And when they got to him, it
was almost like he was some

243
00:15:17,925 --> 00:15:19,215
character out of mythology.

244
00:15:19,215 --> 00:15:23,445
He was different from the others, and
they did not know a great deal about him.

245
00:15:23,715 --> 00:15:26,445
And they talked almost hushed about him.

246
00:15:26,445 --> 00:15:28,305
He was somebody they called the Africa.

247
00:15:28,710 --> 00:15:32,040
Who said his name was Kinte and
the whole thing was just talked

248
00:15:32,040 --> 00:15:34,530
back and forth and, and in and out.

249
00:15:35,040 --> 00:15:41,460
And that was how as a little boy
from say the ages of six or five

250
00:15:41,460 --> 00:15:44,820
through, say 10 every summer.

251
00:15:45,360 --> 00:15:49,740
The first summer was the only time all six
sisters came, but every other summer, some

252
00:15:49,740 --> 00:15:51,300
number of those sisters would come in.

253
00:15:51,300 --> 00:15:52,800
Every summer they would talk about it.

254
00:15:53,160 --> 00:15:57,240
And I learned the stories of their
family very much as I learned the

255
00:15:57,240 --> 00:16:00,360
stories of the biblical parables,
which I heard in Sunday school.

256
00:16:00,960 --> 00:16:04,290
You're listening to In Black
America with Johnny O. Hanson Jr.

257
00:16:04,410 --> 00:16:06,300
We'll be back in just a moment.

258
00:16:07,680 --> 00:16:10,770
And now back to this
episode of In Black America

259
00:16:11,100 --> 00:16:15,240
hitting Tennessee was the kind
of bible belt southern town that.

260
00:16:16,245 --> 00:16:20,625
Black or white in that town, you were
either Methodist, Baptist or sinner.

261
00:16:20,865 --> 00:16:25,574
That was the way people saw it and
every child went to Sunday school and

262
00:16:25,574 --> 00:16:27,525
in Sunday school you learn the stories.

263
00:16:27,555 --> 00:16:31,814
So that, I would say by the time I
was 10, my head in the story terms of

264
00:16:31,814 --> 00:16:36,915
the, was a jumble of things like, uh,
David and Goliath and Chicken George

265
00:16:36,915 --> 00:16:40,844
and Boes, and they were all mixed
up together and I would've had to

266
00:16:40,844 --> 00:16:42,795
stop and consciously think about it.

267
00:16:43,155 --> 00:16:48,855
To figure who belonged in which
group, and thus I learned in

268
00:16:48,855 --> 00:16:52,995
the way that people, we all best
learn something when we are young.

269
00:16:53,655 --> 00:16:57,375
Now, an illustration of that, I'm sure
some of you have had this experience.

270
00:16:57,555 --> 00:17:01,755
I certainly have a great deal if you're
talking with very elderly people.

271
00:17:02,355 --> 00:17:06,885
So frequently you'll come into
situations in your own family or others.

272
00:17:07,304 --> 00:17:11,145
But they may not be too clear on what
happened last week, but they can tell you

273
00:17:11,145 --> 00:17:14,564
exactly what happened when they were eight
years old, nine and so forth, you know?

274
00:17:16,004 --> 00:17:20,145
And the reason for that is because
peoples, all of our minds tend better

275
00:17:20,145 --> 00:17:24,554
to retain that which came into those
minds early before there was a lot of

276
00:17:24,554 --> 00:17:27,344
competition for so many things to know.

277
00:17:28,004 --> 00:17:34,784
And that was how the story that became
so entrenched for me, I grew on up.

278
00:17:35,370 --> 00:17:36,810
Went to school some.

279
00:17:36,810 --> 00:17:41,730
My father was a college professor and it
is, uh uh, nowadays a lot is made about.

280
00:17:41,730 --> 00:17:44,700
I went through this school and
that school and did so well.

281
00:17:44,700 --> 00:17:46,170
I didn't do all that well at all.

282
00:17:46,170 --> 00:17:50,280
I made CS C minus, and the reason I went
into service is to tell you the truth,

283
00:17:50,790 --> 00:17:56,310
was that when I was a sophomore in
college, I was at Alcorn in Mississippi.

284
00:17:56,970 --> 00:18:02,850
And I made a D in French and that in my
father, his, he was a college professor.

285
00:18:02,850 --> 00:18:06,120
As I say in his eyes, that was more
than the family's honor could stand,

286
00:18:06,780 --> 00:18:10,470
and that that was the summer he began
to speak to me about how much he

287
00:18:10,470 --> 00:18:12,480
had enjoyed the army in World War I.

288
00:18:14,820 --> 00:18:19,440
And so he recommended I go into
service his plan, be one that

289
00:18:19,440 --> 00:18:21,240
I stay one hitch three years.

290
00:18:21,540 --> 00:18:23,159
Then he said I would mature.

291
00:18:23,435 --> 00:18:25,804
And then I could come back and
finish college, get a master's,

292
00:18:25,804 --> 00:18:29,344
and get a PhD and be a college
professor and be decent like he was.

293
00:18:29,344 --> 00:18:31,115
That was the way they had saw it.

294
00:18:31,145 --> 00:18:34,475
And he didn't have any plan, nor
did I, but I wound up finally

295
00:18:34,865 --> 00:18:36,334
spending 20 years in the service.

296
00:18:36,334 --> 00:18:36,844
I loved it.

297
00:18:36,844 --> 00:18:40,955
I loved being a sailor and traveling all
over and doing the things sailors did.

298
00:18:41,254 --> 00:18:42,094
And I was a cook.

299
00:18:42,995 --> 00:18:47,314
And, um, during the days I would
cook all day and then at, see

300
00:18:47,314 --> 00:18:48,605
there was nothing to do at night.

301
00:18:48,844 --> 00:18:51,544
And that was how purely by
accident I began to write.

302
00:18:52,169 --> 00:18:55,830
Literally how I got stumbled into being
a writer, which I never had even thought

303
00:18:55,830 --> 00:19:00,570
about, was I used to write lots and lots
of letters, and my shipmates knew I did.

304
00:19:00,659 --> 00:19:04,050
And when we would go ashore in foreign
lands, like it was Australia and

305
00:19:04,050 --> 00:19:07,439
New Zealand guys would meet girls,
the ship goes back out to sea, or

306
00:19:07,439 --> 00:19:10,500
everybody's talking about girls,
they wanted to write letters to 'em.

307
00:19:10,500 --> 00:19:12,149
A lot of the guys just
couldn't write letters.

308
00:19:12,555 --> 00:19:15,014
But they knew I wrote lots of letters
and they began to ask me if I'd

309
00:19:15,014 --> 00:19:16,395
help write love letters for them.

310
00:19:16,815 --> 00:19:17,865
And I began to do it.

311
00:19:18,105 --> 00:19:21,330
I would interview them at night, they'd
line up and I would say, what was it?

312
00:19:21,389 --> 00:19:21,690
You know?

313
00:19:22,215 --> 00:19:24,315
And literally that's the
way I stumbled into writing.

314
00:19:24,315 --> 00:19:25,575
And most of the guys were white.

315
00:19:26,024 --> 00:19:28,784
And they'd tell me, I'd ask them this,
that, the other about the girl, and then

316
00:19:28,784 --> 00:19:31,935
say like, if a guy told me the girls hair
was blonde, well out in the middle of the

317
00:19:31,935 --> 00:19:35,504
ocean, I'd get in some fit of creativity
and come up with something like.

318
00:19:35,925 --> 00:19:39,255
Your hair is like the moonlight
reflected on the rippling waves

319
00:19:39,255 --> 00:19:39,345
and,

320
00:19:40,395 --> 00:19:44,595
and every night there'd be a bunch of guys
carefully copying in their own handwriting

321
00:19:44,955 --> 00:19:49,635
this stuff and they would give me a dollar
a letter and I began to do pretty well.

322
00:19:50,180 --> 00:19:54,855
And, and that was literally what gave
me the first concept that there was

323
00:19:54,855 --> 00:19:56,295
something in the writing business.

324
00:19:56,595 --> 00:20:01,605
And that was what started me on that long,
long road that most writers trod or tread.

325
00:20:02,445 --> 00:20:06,524
I wrote every night, I believe, for
eight years before I sold something

326
00:20:06,524 --> 00:20:08,115
to a magazine, a little piece.

327
00:20:08,355 --> 00:20:12,105
And then I was in, you know, sold on
the idea of trying to be a writer.

328
00:20:12,254 --> 00:20:15,645
And I stayed in the service and
finally was selling to magazines.

329
00:20:15,975 --> 00:20:18,705
Came out of the service, began
to work for Reader's Digest, then

330
00:20:18,705 --> 00:20:22,875
went to Playboy, where I wrote the
interviews, and one of them was Malcolm

331
00:20:22,875 --> 00:20:24,975
X. That led to the book about him.

332
00:20:25,034 --> 00:20:29,115
And then that, when that was
finished, I, out of curiosity

333
00:20:29,115 --> 00:20:30,885
about the story I'd heard as a boy.

334
00:20:31,380 --> 00:20:35,310
Just got to thinking about it and one
day in Washington, I went in the archives

335
00:20:36,030 --> 00:20:41,910
and asked for the census record of
Alamance County, North Carolina 1870.

336
00:20:42,450 --> 00:20:45,540
Having learned somewhere in the interim
that the first time black people were

337
00:20:45,540 --> 00:20:50,820
named in the census was after the Civil
War, and remembering the word Alamance

338
00:20:50,820 --> 00:20:53,700
County, much as you might remember.

339
00:20:54,240 --> 00:21:00,090
Uh, Jerusalem or Galilee from having heard
it as a child in Sunday school so much

340
00:21:00,270 --> 00:21:01,950
that it's just become a fixed part of you.

341
00:21:02,340 --> 00:21:08,130
And I got that census and turning
the crank, looking at the names

342
00:21:08,130 --> 00:21:10,050
of all these people long gone.

343
00:21:10,620 --> 00:21:14,790
And about the six roll of microfilm,
it just sort of came up through the

344
00:21:14,790 --> 00:21:20,070
scope, the names of the family that had
been talked about on the front porch.

345
00:21:20,070 --> 00:21:21,570
And that just galvanized me.

346
00:21:22,004 --> 00:21:25,815
And it wasn't that I had not believed
my grandma, you did not believe my

347
00:21:25,815 --> 00:21:31,245
grandma, but there was something
about seeing on microfilm in the

348
00:21:31,245 --> 00:21:36,135
United States National Archives, the
very things grandma, aunt Liz, aunt

349
00:21:36,135 --> 00:21:38,235
Georgia, and plus all they talked about.

350
00:21:38,625 --> 00:21:43,095
That just fascinated me and I
began the long research that would

351
00:21:43,095 --> 00:21:46,365
ultimately take up nine years of
research and three years of writing.

352
00:21:46,695 --> 00:21:48,615
Not done with any sense of, as I say.

353
00:21:49,155 --> 00:21:51,645
Great nobility and I shall
go forward and do this.

354
00:21:51,645 --> 00:21:55,064
I was just hung up with it
and I just wanted to tell it.

355
00:21:55,064 --> 00:21:58,455
And at some point in the process,
I began to become aware that what

356
00:21:58,455 --> 00:22:03,345
I was really dealing with was not
so much my family story as it was

357
00:22:03,345 --> 00:22:05,175
the symbolic story of a people.

358
00:22:05,445 --> 00:22:08,534
Because all of us who are what we
called black people, have fundamentally

359
00:22:08,564 --> 00:22:10,605
the same basic background story.

360
00:22:10,935 --> 00:22:14,365
Be assured that you too have Acuta Kente.

361
00:22:14,850 --> 00:22:19,855
Or female equivalent who was born and read
somewhere in some West African village.

362
00:22:20,640 --> 00:22:24,990
Who at some point along the way was
captured in some manner, was put in the

363
00:22:24,990 --> 00:22:29,580
hold of some slave ship, brought across
the same ocean into some succession of

364
00:22:29,580 --> 00:22:34,170
plantations, and from that day to their
struggle for freedom in its various forms.

365
00:22:34,170 --> 00:22:36,210
And that's the fundamental broad story.

366
00:22:36,510 --> 00:22:37,320
Of all of us.

367
00:22:37,440 --> 00:22:41,550
When you finished the research and
you put the manuscript together,

368
00:22:42,570 --> 00:22:45,720
did you receive any rejections from
publishing houses when you initially

369
00:22:45,720 --> 00:22:46,860
tried to get the book published?

370
00:22:46,950 --> 00:22:47,730
Not, not.

371
00:22:47,730 --> 00:22:48,030
No.

372
00:22:48,030 --> 00:22:48,720
No, I didn't.

373
00:22:48,720 --> 00:22:52,680
You know, a funny thing is that
story, I don't know if you heard

374
00:22:52,680 --> 00:22:56,040
it that, but for quite a time.

375
00:22:56,610 --> 00:23:00,000
A story to that effect circulated
rather widely that I had had

376
00:23:00,000 --> 00:23:01,650
a very hard time selling it.

377
00:23:01,950 --> 00:23:03,060
That's not true at all.

378
00:23:03,060 --> 00:23:07,800
The fact was that the publishers
practically pulled it outta my typewriter

379
00:23:08,280 --> 00:23:12,780
because it had been sold before I finished
it, the television rights had been sold.

380
00:23:13,620 --> 00:23:14,160
What is her name?

381
00:23:14,160 --> 00:23:16,440
Ruby D. The actress Ruben d Ozzy.

382
00:23:16,440 --> 00:23:17,490
You know Ozzy's wife's

383
00:23:17,490 --> 00:23:17,760
wife?

384
00:23:17,820 --> 00:23:17,910
Mm-hmm.

385
00:23:18,150 --> 00:23:21,240
Heard me speaking about
the research process.

386
00:23:22,005 --> 00:23:27,765
And then she met David Waler, the great
producer, and David said something

387
00:23:27,765 --> 00:23:32,550
about he was looking for something
generational of theme, so Ruby told him.

388
00:23:33,240 --> 00:23:37,410
About what she had heard me talking
about and David came looking for me,

389
00:23:37,410 --> 00:23:42,030
which is sort of like, you know, the
Mountain Olympus comes to you and uh,

390
00:23:42,030 --> 00:23:43,290
were you in awe when he called you?

391
00:23:43,350 --> 00:23:44,305
I was in awe.

392
00:23:45,090 --> 00:23:45,120
Awe.

393
00:23:45,120 --> 00:23:47,850
I was, I was, I don't know
what the proper word is.

394
00:23:47,850 --> 00:23:48,690
I was beyond awe.

395
00:23:49,635 --> 00:23:52,485
Moreover, I remember I was in,
uh, Jamaica, in the West Indies

396
00:23:52,485 --> 00:23:55,305
because I didn't have enough
money to stay here and work.

397
00:23:55,305 --> 00:23:56,025
It's cheaper there.

398
00:23:56,025 --> 00:23:56,115
Mm-hmm.

399
00:23:56,865 --> 00:24:00,675
And when he called me, um, or he
didn't call me, my manager called

400
00:24:00,675 --> 00:24:06,105
me saying that David wanted to
buy it, just as outright as that.

401
00:24:06,615 --> 00:24:09,015
And I really didn't have money
enough to get back to this country.

402
00:24:09,015 --> 00:24:10,545
My manager had to send me fair.

403
00:24:11,145 --> 00:24:14,685
And, uh, so I came on back and,
and, you know, and everything.

404
00:24:15,085 --> 00:24:16,075
Went beautifully.

405
00:24:16,345 --> 00:24:20,395
David turned out to be magnificent
guy to work with and learn from.

406
00:24:21,145 --> 00:24:25,075
And, uh, anyway, I did not have
that problem at all of selling it.

407
00:24:25,165 --> 00:24:30,805
I, but rejection slips, I got in
abundance in my, you know, early

408
00:24:30,805 --> 00:24:32,065
years of trying to be a writer.

409
00:24:32,065 --> 00:24:35,815
There were, from the time I
started, I rode every day.

410
00:24:35,815 --> 00:24:38,905
I was then in the US Coast Guard
and I was riding on ships at night

411
00:24:38,965 --> 00:24:42,325
'cause I was a cook by day and I got.

412
00:24:42,870 --> 00:24:46,350
Eight years of steady projections
lived before I sold the first

413
00:24:46,350 --> 00:24:48,120
thing, like almost any other writer.

414
00:24:48,990 --> 00:24:54,270
You wrote the autobiography of Malcolm
X during my generation and was must

415
00:24:54,270 --> 00:24:56,160
reading for all college students.

416
00:24:56,520 --> 00:25:00,270
How did you come to meet Malcolm
Little Leonard on Malcolm X

417
00:25:00,270 --> 00:25:01,440
and the writer's biography?

418
00:25:01,620 --> 00:25:03,570
When I got out of the Coast Guard.

419
00:25:04,140 --> 00:25:07,080
I retired, you know, I was,
uh, I had been in 20 years.

420
00:25:07,590 --> 00:25:08,670
I was 37.

421
00:25:09,060 --> 00:25:15,480
And the first magazine assignment that
I got was from, surprisingly to me,

422
00:25:15,480 --> 00:25:19,590
the Reader's Digest asked if I would
do a piece about the organization

423
00:25:19,590 --> 00:25:22,980
known colloquial as the black Muslims,
or, you know, the Nation of Islam.

424
00:25:23,640 --> 00:25:25,350
And he, Malcolm was the spokesman.

425
00:25:25,620 --> 00:25:27,390
So that was how I first met him.

426
00:25:27,960 --> 00:25:30,630
And then subsequently, I, uh.

427
00:25:30,690 --> 00:25:36,240
I began to do the interviews for Playboy
Magazine and I interviewed him for that.

428
00:25:36,930 --> 00:25:42,840
Then a publishing editor, Ken McCormick,
a venerable editor, read the Playboy

429
00:25:42,840 --> 00:25:46,950
interview and asked Malcolm if he would be
willing to tell his life in book lengths.

430
00:25:47,250 --> 00:25:51,870
Detail and Malcolm Deur
and you know about it.

431
00:25:51,870 --> 00:25:57,000
He finally agreed and then he, Malcolm
asked me if I would, uh, write with him

432
00:25:57,000 --> 00:25:58,590
the book, and that's how that happened.

433
00:25:59,070 --> 00:26:02,790
There has been generations removed
from Malcolm X since his death.

434
00:26:03,180 --> 00:26:05,790
What kind of man was Malcolm X?

435
00:26:05,970 --> 00:26:08,700
Personally and
professionally as you know it

436
00:26:08,760 --> 00:26:11,430
often I get asked that,
as you would imagine.

437
00:26:12,330 --> 00:26:13,615
Usually I try.

438
00:26:14,340 --> 00:26:18,930
There's one word above all others,
I just say the man was electrical.

439
00:26:19,260 --> 00:26:20,160
He really was.

440
00:26:20,160 --> 00:26:25,950
I have never known anybody before or since
who generated the kind of excitement that

441
00:26:25,950 --> 00:26:28,680
he did just in his being and his persona.

442
00:26:28,680 --> 00:26:34,200
You know, he, he lived more than the
average 10 men did in his 39 years.

443
00:26:34,920 --> 00:26:38,460
He was that particularly professionally.

444
00:26:39,300 --> 00:26:43,080
And then personally, I guess he was also.

445
00:26:43,635 --> 00:26:46,215
Under a lot of pressure,
a lot of nervous energy.

446
00:26:46,875 --> 00:26:51,975
It was hard for him to sit down like we
are sitting, he would be pacing the floor.

447
00:26:52,245 --> 00:26:54,765
He was like a caged tiger all the time.

448
00:26:55,545 --> 00:27:04,365
He, um, was, it seemed as if he
challenged himself to do all that

449
00:27:04,365 --> 00:27:07,455
he possibly could do and then a
little bit more, that type thing.

450
00:27:07,875 --> 00:27:12,525
And together with that, he had a. You
know, a, a sentimental street, rarely

451
00:27:12,525 --> 00:27:15,705
seen, and little eccentricities.

452
00:27:15,705 --> 00:27:16,305
Of course.

453
00:27:16,365 --> 00:27:23,775
One of them I remember he had, um, you
know, when he was in prison, he, uh,

454
00:27:24,165 --> 00:27:28,785
said that he had almost forgotten in the
streets all he had learned in school.

455
00:27:29,475 --> 00:27:34,995
So in prison, he decided he would,
in effect, kind of reeducate himself.

456
00:27:35,175 --> 00:27:37,275
Delay Alex Murray Palmer, Haley.

457
00:27:37,860 --> 00:27:40,950
If you have questions, comments,
or suggestions asked your future

458
00:27:40,950 --> 00:27:47,070
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459
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460
00:27:51,060 --> 00:27:55,530
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Nx, you're gonna have periods
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462
00:28:01,490 --> 00:28:05,870
Also, you can listen to a special
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463
00:28:05,870 --> 00:28:08,300
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464
00:28:08,720 --> 00:28:10,370
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465
00:28:11,790 --> 00:28:15,870
The views and opinions expressed on
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466
00:28:15,930 --> 00:28:21,240
of this station or of the University
of Texas at Austin in Black America.

467
00:28:21,270 --> 00:28:25,890
'cause the listener supported production
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468
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You can support our work by
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469
00:28:31,170 --> 00:28:35,550
I'm sure we have the opportunity again
for Texaco producer David Alvarez.

470
00:28:35,820 --> 00:28:39,420
I'm Johnny O. Hanson, Jr.
Thank you for joining us today.

471
00:28:39,540 --> 00:28:41,820
Please join us again next week.

472
00:28:41,820 --> 00:28:45,570
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473
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474
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477
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478
00:29:07,125 --> 00:29:09,620
This has been a production of KUT radio.