Museum renovation, book re-release honor late author Haley

HENNING, Tenn. – Find the bully and praise it.

It's a operation the precocious Alex Haley, writer of the 1976 caller “Roots: The Saga of an American Family,” often said during his life, from his days residing successful the tiny West Tennessee municipality of Henning done his satellite travels arsenic a writer and writer. His seminal publication astir the horrors and injustices of slavery see messages of perseverance, courageousness and strength.

Now, connected the juncture of his 100th birthday, the author's bridge-building bequest is being invoked erstwhile again arsenic a benignant of antidote to an particularly contentious play of American life. A ribbon-cutting astatine the renovated Alex Haley Museum and Interpretive Center took spot Friday, and a assemblage solemnisation featuring music, nutrient and a manner amusement is scheduled Saturday.

Haley's beingness was filled with examples of surviving by those words. There was the clip helium encouraged adjacent person Fred Montgomery to go his hometown's archetypal Black mayor, pushing backmost astatine absorption from immoderate of the town's achromatic populace.

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Haley, who was Black and died successful 1992, besides is remembered successful this month's re-release of a 2003 publication entitled “Finding the Good,” by erstwhile Associated Press writer Lucas L. Johnson II.

Johnson's publication discusses the beingness of Montgomery, who befriended Haley successful Henning. As young boys, they would aquatics unneurotic and constitute emotion poems to girls. Haley had wanted to constitute a publication astir Montgomery, who was calved into a household of sharecroppers and endured racism successful the Jim Crow South earlier becoming a palmy plumber, workplace owner, alderman and mayor. Johnson weaves Montgomery's communicative with examples from his ain beingness dealing with racism, household members grappling with substance maltreatment and incarceration, and issues of faith.

Haley is astir good known for “Roots,” which earned him a Pulitzer Prize and was turned into a TV miniseries watched by a record-setting 130 cardinal radical erstwhile it was released successful 1977. Haley besides wrote “The Autobiography of Malcolm X,” based connected interviews with the civilian rights leader.

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The Henning depository and the location wherever Haley lived with his grandparents from 1921 to 1929 are authorities historical sites.

In his book, Johnson includes examples of Haley's power connected himself and Montgomery. In this month's re-release, Johnson updates his publication to bring Haley's connection of “finding the good” into the discourse of current-day issues similar the coronavirus and the sidesplitting of George Floyd, a Black man, by a achromatic constabulary serviceman successful Minnesota.

“Prayerfully, I started looking for the good,” Johnson writes. "And I recovered the inspiring stories of health-care workers and archetypal responders — arsenic good arsenic mundane radical — who risked their lives to assistance others.

“I saw radical who had erstwhile ignored the world of racism region their blinders, clasp humanity, and enactment alongside non-whites to make change,” helium continues. “I saw anticipation for a genuinely divided nation.”

“Finding the Good” has received praise from “Roots” histrion Louis Gossett Jr., civilian rights person James M. Lawson Jr., and Bernice A. King, girl of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.

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The re-release besides includes a timely foreword by erstwhile Tennessee politician and Republican U.S. Sen. Lamar Alexander, who was friends with Montgomery and Haley and cites Haley's inspirational motto.

Alexander, authorities and section elected officials, and Haley's grandson, Bill Haley, attended Friday's lawsuit marking the renovation of the museum, located connected the grounds of his boyhood home. The depository sits adjacent the determination of a location Haley bought for Montgomery, different illustration of Haley “finding the good.” Alexander and different speakers cited Haley's favourite operation during their remarks.

As a boy, Alex Haley would beryllium alongside his grandma connected the structure of the 10-room, bungalow-style location and perceive to her archer stories astir his ancestors.

Bill Haley called the location “the spiritual center, the lifeblood” of his grandfather's involvement successful his family's oral history, their roots.

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