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Summarized by Paul Pickett
U.S. Ambassador Speaks On Genealogy On Temple Hill
(Ambassador to revisit roots in Gambia)
Oakland CA Tribune 7May00 N6
Haley speaks at Oakland event
OAKLAND, CALIFORNIA -- GEORGE HALEY, U.S. Ambassador to the Republic
of Gambia and brother of "Roots" author Alex Haley, returned to America
from Gambia, the same country from which Kunta Kinte, Haley's African
ancestor, was taken to America in chains as a slave. After
"revisit[ing] his roots" Haley spoke on May 13 in Oakland at the
Mormon Interstake Center on Temple Hill about the need to strengthen
the family unit.
Ambassador Haley is retracing the diplomatic path his brother Alex tread
in 1977. It was during that sojourn to Salt Lake City to Temple Square's
Family History Library that Alex met with Mormon world leaders and
received an honorary doctorate degree from Brigham Young University for
his efforts to encourage family reunions as a way of ending rootlessness.
Before he arrived in Oakland, Ambassador Haley spoke in Salt Lake City,
as did his brother, on the "unifying effect strong family units have on
communities, nations and the world."
In 1980, Mormon Presidents N. Eldon Tanner and Marion G. Romney told Alex
Haley they had "been trying for years to get people to go back to the
fourth and fifth generations, and you come along with one book and they
do it."
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