B I O  |  A L E X  H A L E Y

On August 11, 1921, Alexander Murray Palmer Haley (“Alex”)—the oldest of three brothers, George and Julius—was born to Simon Haley and Bertha Palmer Haley—great-great-granddaughter of George "Chicken George" Lea—-in Ithaca, New York, where Simon was attending Cornell University. Six weeks after his birth, Simon and Bertha returned to her hometown of Henning, Tennessee, to see Bertha’s parents, Will Palmer and Cynthia Murray Palmer—George Lea's great-granddaughter—with Alex, their first grandson. Alex and his mother remained with his grandparents, while Simon—an alum of HBCU Lane College—returned to Cornell to complete his graduate studies in agriculture.

 

After the 1926 death of his father-in-law, Will Palmer, Simon joined Bertha and family in Henning, and operated the Palmer family business. During this time, Alex listened to his grandmother, Cynthia tell vibrant stories about his family’s ancestry. She spoke about “Kin-tay”, who was an ancestral grandfather that traced back seven generations.  She said was sold into enslavement with other Gambian Africans in “Naplis” (Annapolis, MD). In 1929, Simon began his teaching career at HBCU Alabama A&M University in Normal, Alabama, and the family moved. Two years after they relocated to Alabama, Bertha Palmer Haley passed away at 34 from tuberculosis, when Alex was ten.

 

Although Alex was considered a “laxed” student, he graduated from high school at 15.  In 1937, Alex first enrolled at HBCU Alcorn State University for a year, and then transferred North Carolina’s HBCU Elizabeth City State Teachers College (now Elizabeth City State College), where he attended for two years. At 17, Alex returned to Alabama to inform his father that he withdrew from college, because of low grades. Though disappointed, Simon felt that Alex needed discipline and growth, and finally convinced his son to enlist in the military when he turned 18.

 

On May 24, 1939, Alex began his 20-year service with the U.S. Coast Guard in the kitchen as a “mess-boy.” He then became a third-class Petty Officer, one of the few enlisted designators open to African Americans at that time. It was during his service in the Pacific Theater of Operations on the USS Murzim that Alex began developing his craft of creative writing and wordsmithing, which he also used to write love letters on behalf of his shipmates to send to their wives and girlfriends.  Alex then began writing short stories, while assigned at sea (it’d take 8 years before small magazines—such as Coronet Magazine—would accept some of his stories).
 

In 1941, Alex married Nannie "Nan" Branch, whom he had met in North Carolina. But his marriage didn’t keep him “landside”, because Alex’s stay in the Coast Guard was lengthened by the U.S. entering World War II, eventually receiving a promotion to steward. Soon after the attack on Pearl Harbor, he was assigned to a cargo-supply ship in the South Pacific. Shortly after this, Alex was promoted from steward to signalman. And it was from the signal bridge he looked down upon an active Mail Call in process that led to a story by the same name, which was first printed in the ship’s newsletter, Seafarer. After several shipmates sent it back in letters to the states, it was picked up over a wire service and widely reprinted across the U.S.

 

Post WWII, Alex was ordered back to the States assigned to Third District (now Northeast) Public Relations in New York. He continued “learning to write” while in this position and “achieved some by-lines in tolerant military publications.” Then 1950 turned into a momentous year for Alex for two reasons. First, the admiral he served as a steward was so impressed by one of Alex’s articles, that he successfully petitioned the Coast Guard to create the rating of journalist for Alex, where he was named their Chief Journalist, a position created just for him. Secondly, the same year brought his first commercial sale, a story about laughable requests for help that the Coast Guard received called “They Drive You Crazy”, and was carried by major Sunday papers supplement, This Week magazine (think pre-2023 Parade Magazine).
 

The years that followed saw a steady increase in interest in his articles. Esquire Magazine-owned, Coronet Magazine bought the first of 15 to 20 short human-interest articles in 1952. During 1953 he also had articles in Yachting magazine, FLYING magazine, and Reader’s Digest.  By 1954, he was transferred from New York to San Francisco, still writing constantly and being published sporadically.   In 1955 one of his articles, “Hope Springs Eternal”, appeared in the January issue of the revered Atlantic Monthly. While it focused on his great Aunt Liz (Elizabeth Murray), the article mentioned his grandmother’s having “a paper tracing her family back to a freed slave”—a hint of the family saga that would lead two decades later to the publication of “Roots”.  In 1956, he turned his eye toward writing articles of interest to African Americans with the article, "A New Audience for Radio", about radio stations formatted for Black listeners, that appeared in the February issue of Harper’s Magazine.

 

After 20 years of service, at 38 years-old he retired from the U.S. Coast Guard in 1959, as a Chief Petty Officer. Alex, along with his wife, Nan, and their two children, Lydia and William—Bill's father, actually stayed in New York for Alex to pursue a full-time writing career…And the rest is literally history, including when Alex finally learned the meaning of the earlier referenced, “Kin-tay” as a Mandinka word seven years later by Hamilton College International Student from The Gambia, Ebou Manga—Malick's father—who Alex would credit as being the catalyst that led to Alex discovering his ancestral Gambian roots, and subsequently the book ten years later in 1976—ROOTS…