MovieChat Forums > Queen (1993) Discussion > Question about Alex Haley

Question about Alex Haley


Could he not find the true African name of the Haley family, Like he did on his mom's side "Kinte"?

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In order to do that, he would've had to trace Cap'n Jack's roots, her (Queen) only Black relative,(keep in mind, Easter was half Native American, and Jackson was Irish) and there were probably no known records of him to be found. Its amazing how he compiled so much of his family history at the time that he did, with little to no recorded documents on slaves and the little technology available.

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Yeah but Queen was his grandma, she just ended up with a Haley and started a family.

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well he would have had to asked Alec his granddad or his dad Simon the history questions. Unlike his Maternal side his Paternal side did not pass along the oral history of his family so during that time it would have been impossible. Especially since DNA for genealogy testing wasn't developed.

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In addition to the other answers here - remember, Kunta Kinte was brought to America much later. Just because we saw his shipboard journey (or rather, Mr. Haley, was able to find record of it), the slaves from Queen's family could have arrived 100 or more years prior. I'm sure that could've made it more difficult to track.

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Much of what Haley claimed was not true. His genealogy was fabricated and his book was actually plagiarism.

The following is from the website, http://www.martinlutherking.org/roots.html

"Virtually every genealogical claim in Haley's story was false," Nobile has written. None of Haley's early writing contains any reference to his mythic ancestor, "the African" named Kunta Kinte. Indeed, Haley's later notes give his family name
as "Kante," not "Kinte."

And a long-suppressed tape of the famous session in which Haley " found" Kunta Kinte through the recitation of an African "griot" proves that, as BBC producer James Kent noted, "the villagers [were] threatened by members of Haley's party.
These turn out to be senior government officials desperate to ensure that things go
smoothly."

Haley, added Kent, "specifically asks for a story that will fit
his predetermined American narrative."

Historical experts who checked Haley's genealogical research discovered that, as one put it, "Haley got everything wrong in his pre-Civil War lineage and none of his
plantation ancestors existed; 182 pages have no basis in fact."

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