honeymonster

NBC aired a special commemorating the 25th anniversary of the Alex Haley miniseries "Roots." Interestingly enough, the original miniseries ran on ABC, but that network decided they'd had enough of Haley. Even more interesting, the 1997 BBC documentary proving that Haley made up the Roots" story and that it's not history at all and that there is no Kunta Kinte, has never been aired in the United States. "Virtually every genealogical claim in Haley's story was false," wrote Philip Nobile in a 1993 Village Voice article. But most amazing of all, in Haley's plagiarism case--in which it was shown that he stole the plot, the main character and even word-for-word passages from a 1967 novel by white author Hal Courlander--the judge said Haley
repeatedly perjured himself in court, but that "I did not want to destroy him." And so Haley was allowed to settle quietly out of court. Now "Mandingo"--that was a documentary.

--Joe Bob Briggs