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Alex Haley’s works supported the idea of the American Dream because his books Roots, Queen and The Autobiography of Malcolm X illustrate his family’s ability to overcome the hardships of slavery, chronicles an individual’s rise from incarceration to national prominence and shows how perseverance always bears fruit.

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Alex Haley’s Roots is a monument to his ancestor’s achievement of the American Dream. In the book, he chronicles his ancestor, Kunta Kinte’s, journey from enslavement to freedom. His overall goal is for “the book to be a ‘buoy for black self-esteem and a reminder of the universal truth that we are all children of the same creator’” (UXL Biographies). This quote shows how Haley wanted his Kunta Kinte’s story of obtaining his freedom after being enslaved to be an inspiration for other members of the black community. His message is that the American Dream is real and people can achieve their goals no matter how impossible they seem.

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As Malcolm X’s ghostwriter, Alex Haley’s opinions in The Autobiography of Malcolm X demonstrated how an individual was able to rise from nothing into a prominent political figure. During his interviews with the muslim activist, he “recounted [Malcolm X’s] struggle with racism and growth into political and religious sophistication,” and “gave his readers a sense of the shameful past and the hopeful but forbidding future of race relations in the United States.” (Newsmakers). Through the usage of Malcolm X’s life as a backdrop, Alex Haley was able to show evidence of the American Dream. He perfectly painted the picture of hardships that had to be overcome before meaningful success was attained. The fact that Malcolm started off as a delinquent and was incarcerated, then became the famous individual everyone knows about is a compelling story that Haley is able to utilize to allude to the American Dream.

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Haley’s book Queen is another example of how he used his family’s story to show evidence of the American Dream. After the phenomenal success of Roots, Haley dug into the history of the other side of his family, his father’s side. The process was very similar to that of researching Roots and eventually he, “found the village where great-great-great-great-grandfather had lived [and] been captured into slavery.” (Gianoulis). It was from this line that Haley wrote about his paternal grandmother. He wrote about how she was born into slavery through wedlock. Because her mother was a slave descended from captive Africans, her white father refused to give her freedom. The novel discusses how Haley’s grandmother has to learn to live with the fact that her father was also her enslaver after the Civil War ends and she is set free. More importantly, Haley exemplifies how perseverance always bears fruit. The end of the book resulted in Queen being able to find her way in life despite being mixed race, which was shunned at the time. While Queen is similar to Roots in premise, it differs by showing an individual dealing with life’s problems rather than a quest for freedom. Haley’s final book is the perfect example of how everything he wrote about supported the idea of the American Dream.

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In addition to showing how people can achieve goals no matter how hard, Roots is also a story about people finding themselves. In an interview with Jeffrey Elliot, Haley discloses, “In essence, Roots touched a man’s universal quest for identity.” (Haley & Elliot). The purpose of Roots is twofold. Not only is it a recollection of Haley’s ancestor’s quest for liberation, it is also an allegory to everyone’s desire to find their meaning. Many people come to America for a better life and to find joy in themselves. While the slaves may not have had a choice in coming to the United States, their stories of discovery are no less important. Haley is able to encapsulate this feeling of wanting to find your true self and figure out your purpose perfectly in his last literary work. Roots is truly magnum opus and the multiple messages he delivers about the American Dream shine through and make it radiant.

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American Author Project Works Cited (FINAL)