Article Written for Bookish
In writing a biography of Alex Haley, I learned some surprising things about him and his career as a writer.
1. Haley sold more books in one day in February 1977 than I have sold in my whole career of publishing fourteen books. Both his two main works, The Autobiography of Malcolm X and Roots, sold in the neighborhood of six million books. That is mind-boggling success to me. I have never experienced celebrity, and Haley lived with it most of his adult life, with all its pleasures and its pitfalls.
2. But I found that Haley and I had some things in common.
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History May not Repeat Itself but it Does Rhyme
Mark Twain is alleged to have said "History may not repeat itself but it does rhyme.” I thought of this line when I heard that my home state of Alabama had closed DMV offices in the 25 counties with the highest black population in the state. This is a new cover of an old song. I wrote in Reaping the Whirlwind: The Civil Rights Movement in Tuskegee about a long struggle by African Americans to get the right to vote.
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