In the wake of successful slavery-themed movies like “12 Years a Slave,” “The Butler” and “Lincoln,” the History Channel just announced plans to remake “Roots,” the landmark 1977 mini-series that drew record ratings. How will they handle the hoax problem?
“Roots” was based on the late Alex Haley’s Pulitzer Prize-winning runaway best-seller, which was billed as a factual account (albeit with some fictional embellishments) of his family’s history from Africa through slavery in the South to present times. All this was said to be based on generations of oral history corroborated by painstakingly researched outside documents.
But as I wrote in these pages back in 2002 (when ABC, which aired the original series, declined to broadcast a 25th anniversary tribute), historians and genealogists now widely agree that “Roots” has been discredited as a historical hoax.
More than a decade later, most people remain totally unaware of the troubling issues behind “Roots” — or simply don’t want to hear that this still-acclaimed work was essentially a fake.
That view is shared even by such noted African-American historians as Harvard’s Henry Louis Gates, a Haley friend who conceded that it’s time to “speak candidly” and admit that “it’s highly unlikely that Alex actually found the village from whence his ancestors sprang,” adding that it was not “strict historical scholarship.” The late John Henrik Clarke, dean of Afrocentrist scholars, said he “cried real tears when I realized that Haley was less than authentic.”
Genealogists, eager to retrace the historical steps Haley claimed he took in his 12-year search for his family heritage, discovered this early on: Documents didn’t match any information Haley cited; the dates were all wrong and so was the supposed slave lineage. Elizabeth Shown Mills, editor of the National Genealogical Society Quarterly, went so far as to denounce Haley’s “subterfuge.”
And the first half of the book — Kunta Kinte’s life in Africa — was blatantly plagiarized from an earlier novel by anthropologist Harold Courlander, who sued Haley, accepting a $650,000 settlement after the court’s expert witness concluded that the copying in the book and the movie was “clear and irrefutable . . . significant and extensive.”
That deal was made after the judge hearing the case, alarmed not only by the extent of the copying but also by Haley’s repeated perjury in court, pressed the sides to settle, then sealed the official file from public view. The judge later admitted (in a BBC documentary that has never run on American TV) that he “didn’t want to destroy” Haley and his reputation.
Perhaps the most damning exposé of Haley’s historical hoax came in a devastating 1993 Village Voice cover piece by Philip Nobile, who’d had access to Haley’s personal papers before they were broken up and auctioned off. There he found compelling evidence that the non-plagiarized section of the book had been primarily written not by Haley but by his longtime editor at Playboy magazine, Murray Fisher.
Moreover, the BBC located a tape of the famous session in Gambia with the griot, or oral historian, who supposedly made the link between Haley’s slave forebears and their African ancestor, Kunta Kinte. It showed the griot’s story being repeatedly corrected by Gambian officials and Haley himself specifically asking for a tale that fit his predetermined narrative.
“Roots” — both book and history — touched an understandable nerve in American society. As Gates has noted, it “captured everyone’s imagination.” And it was a story that African-Americans and well-meaning whites very much wanted to be an accurate depiction of slavery’s evils.
But to suggest that an ostensible work of history shouldn’t be held accountable for its deceptions merely because its heart is in the right place is paternalism at its worst. This sentiment explains why there has been so little coverage of this over the years. (Haley himself once compared anyone attacking the historical truth of “Roots” to Holocaust deniers.)
Yet now the History Channel plans to revive “Roots” for a new generation. Asked if the new series will be presented as fact or if the myriad inaccuracies will be addressed, a network spokeswoman replied: “History is taking everything into consideration as we move forward through the development process.”
No doubt the new “Roots” will tell a dramatic story and most likely will be compelling viewing. But it may well be short on actual history.
Eric Fettmann is a member of The Post’s editorial board.