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He’s the man that February forgot

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Unlike the acknowledged heroes of February, Alex Haley stooped slightly, was a little overweight and often mumbled when he spoke.

Martin Luther King was eloquent, Arthur Ashe graceful and Malcolm X rebellious, which, among other obvious attributes, catapulted them into historical significance.

But listen as I might, read as I might and research as I might, there was scant mention of the man who, with the book “Roots,” fired the pride of a whole race and, beyond that, the interest of an entire planet.

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I mention Haley’s physical appearance only to wonder if side by side with February’s heroes of Black History Month he lacked the stature necessary to be included as one of them.

But my interest in him is not purely based on historical or racial grounds. Haley had been an exceptionally good friend for 40 years and I am determined to remind us all again of the immensity of his contribution to the spirit of cultural enlightenment.

“Roots,” published in 1976, sold almost 6 million copies and was printed in 37 languages around the world, creating an interest in genealogy not only for African Americans but for all the rest of us too. A subsequent miniseries attracted an audience of 100 million viewers.

But a month of black icons slipped by without rousing accolades for this unassuming man, and I think I know why. His fall from grace was abrupt and humiliating.

Haley died in 1992 at age 70, almost broke and burdened by criticism. Scholars faulted his research methods, and eight authors sued him for plagiarism. He paid off one for $650,000, saying with deep sadness that he just wanted to get it over with.

Awarded a Pulitzer Prize in 1977, there were subsequent demands that it be returned. After his death, the plaque was auctioned off for $50,000 to help pay Haley’s debts. He was buried in his boyhood home of Henning, Tenn., and vanished into a quiet history of statuary and museum-filed manuscripts.

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I’m certain that in other places Haley was awarded the kinds of remembrances he deserved, but not here. We’re a Hollywood-oriented culture, celebrating what’s “hot” and dismissing what’s not. In L.A., it seems, Haley has been relegated to the category of yesterday’s television star, a familiar face in a fickle world.

When “Roots” was published, I asked to be assigned to follow him on a speaking tour across the country, from New York’s Greenwich Village to San Francisco’s North Beach, both of which were home to him. His soft baritone, sometimes almost indiscernible, and his unassuming attitude made him a surreal figure amid those who adored him. Crowds, mostly of black people, surrounded him wherever he went, in the grand halls of famous universities or in the high school gymnasiums of small Southern towns.

They marveled at the stories he told of his growing up and of his time as a Coast Guard mess boy and of his 12 years researching and writing the book that had become the literary equivalent of holy scripture. Kunta Kinte, whose life “Roots” traced as an African brought to the U.S. in chains, became the ancestor of us all.

What Haley created transcended accusations and critiques. Emerging from his efforts was a realization so monumental that it dwarfed lawsuits and the carping of noisy scholars. “Roots” gave a whole race of people a past, translating the oral history of the African griots, the storytellers, into contemporary terms. It made slavery the story of real people and its horrors the painful burden of the race that enslaved them.

There was no meanness in the book, a truth that reflected Haley himself. He was both generous and kind, attitudes that emerged as he traced the family of Kunta Kinte through the agonies of capture and bondage. Haley understood that hysteria too often detracted from truth, and truth was his ultimate aim. He wanted us to know that a people had survived a dark time in history and had emerged singing.

What did surprise him was the impact of “Roots.” (“Had I realized what was coming,” he once remarked, “I’d have typed faster.”) Before “Roots,” he had written “The Autobiography of Malcolm X,” which, while a bestseller, lacked the explosive importance of the monumental work that followed.

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The memory of Alex Haley shines brightly in my mind. We wrote together, we drank together, we told stories together, but mostly, we shared each other’s company without demands or impositions. Even when he assumed the stature of racial icon, he was the same self-effacing man I had always known. This distinguished him and, perhaps, also in a way diminished him. He wasn’t your average hero.

He was a whole lot more.

Al Martinez’s column appears Mondays and Fridays. He can be reached at al.martinez@ latimes.com.

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