When Lamar Alexander was running for election in 1978 for governor of Tennessee, he adopted the strategy of walking 1,022 miles from Mountain City to Memphis visiting and speaking with people along the way.
On his trek, he wore a red-checked flannel shirt. Part of the plan was for him to walk from Covington to Henning, Tenn., near the end of his walk. There, the State of Tennessee was dedicating the Alex Haley Museum in what had been the home of Alex’s maternal grandparents, Mr. and Mrs. Will E. Palmer, where he spent several years of his boyhood. Charlie Howell, a Commissioner in Lamar’s cabinet, invited me to fly to West Tennessee in a state plane for the ceremony. I was delighted to go.
Several folks had been bussed out from Memphis for the occasion. On the front porch of the one story house with an attic and dormer window above, were a half dozen or so octogenarian African American men singing gospel songs. That was beautiful. All of a sudden, Charlie and I noticed slowly walking toward us two older men. They were holding hands, and they stopped a few yards in front of us and asked “Are you from New York City?”
Some minutes later, Lamar arrived and the ceremony started. It was important for the state to buy the modest house and convert it into a museum honoring Alex Haley. Alex, when a boy sitting on the front porch of his grandparent’ home in Henning, listened for hours as his grandmother, Cynthia Palmer, and his aunt, Elizabeth Murray, spoke about their family history, reaching all the way back to the African named Kunta Kinte.
In 1976, Alex, a journalist, wrote a novel that tells the story of Kunta Kinte, an 18th Century African adolescent who was kidnapped in Africa, sold into slavery and transported to North America. It follows his life and the lives of his descendants in the United States down to Haley. The release of the novel combined with the hugely popular television adaptation, Roots, released in 1977, led to a cultural sensation in the U.S. The novel spent 46 weeks on The New York Times Best Seller list, including 22 weeks as the No. 1 hit. It stimulated interest in African American genealogy and an appreciation for African American history.
The Tennessee State Legislature took an interest and appropriated the funds needed to convert the Palmer house into a museum. When Haley died in 1992, he was buried on the grounds of the museum, whose site manager today is Richard Griffin.