Roots, Fame, And Legacy

Crista Cowan 0:00

Alex Haley searched for history and found fame. His nephew Chris Haley searched for fame and found history. 50 years ago, one story completely transformed how America viewed its history, flooding archives nationwide with millions of everyday people searching for their family roots. Before the book and the Blockbuster miniseries, Alex Haley spent decades chasing his family's past, and in doing so became one of the most famous authors in history. His nephew Chris Haley spent decades chasing fame one audition after another, only to discover his true calling wasn't under the spotlight. But deep inside those same historical archives. Today, Chris is the director of the study of the legacy of slavery at the Maryland State Archives. But despite carrying one of the most famous names in American literature, he insisted on carving his own path. Today, we talk about growing up in the shadow of a cultural phenomenon, forging your own identity, and what it really means to build an enduring legacy. Enjoy my conversation with Chris Haley. Hi, I'm

Growing Up With A Writer Uncle

Crista Cowan 1:15

Crista Cowan, and this is the podcast where telling your family stories can help create a deeply connected family. Welcome to Stories That Live In Us. Chris, thank you so much for being here. I'm super excited to have this conversation with you to learn more about what you're doing. But I'd love to kind of just step back in time and talk a little bit about your family and your family heritage. For those who don't know, uh you are connected to Alex Haley and to his book Roots. And I would just love to know a little bit more about what it was like growing up as a child in the Haley family while your uncle was doing this research and writing this book.

Chris Haley 2:02

Thank you, Crista. Again, I just want to say I'm so pleased, honored, proud to be on your show because even the title, the stories that live within us, that is fascinating. And I love that because I think that's so true and so much a part of what genealogy and family history is. And also as the barefoot genealogist, I love that because it's like, and now it's always seems self-serving to say the roots, but the root of the issue is not highfalutin, this, that, and the other. It's just being very basic and down to earth, and just asking people, what's the name of your f father? What's the name of your mother? Uh, are you part of that kin or that kin? It's it's to me, it's always been that basic, is how you can move forward. So with that saying, with that said, for myself, being being being, I was very young then. And and Uncle Alex, who we then called Uncle Palmer, was not always famous. Ruth was not always a a reality in our in our life in our lives. So he was my father's oldest brother who would come by the house in DC every now and then, maybe once or twice a year. And when I was old enough to recognize what he was doing, it was that I knew he was a writer. I knew that very often he would show up in D.C. because he had a speech to get give at the Library of Congress, and or maybe even the Smithsonian, about some research that he was doing that had something to do. And I don't even know if I knew then it was about our family. It was just there was a book he was writing, and people constantly wanted to see him talk about it. And I I believe I might have gone once to one of these talks because he didn't talk for a minute. I mean, it was an hour or two hours straight. And it wasn't broken up by entertainment or or or the dance routines, or it was just him just talking. And as a little kid, there's only so much of that you can sit through without being very agitated and and and and being annoying to your parents who are really into it. So that's really all I generally got out of it. But I just knew there was something potentially big going. And I say that because my my aspirations as a as a young child was to be an actor and be a uh a singer, to the point where that was my dream, that was my fantasy, that was that was my goal in life. So I fantasize a lot about being famous and everybody knowing my name and performing. So I do believe that relatively early on, I also entertained the fantasy of what would it be like to have a famous relative? What would it like, what would it be like to have someone who was so renowned or well known that people would put some type of identity profile on you because you related to this famous individual. And that was something that I started to consider. But it was it was with every succeeding year that my uncle would come back and do this talk, and they would be sold out about this book he was doing, and the book wouldn't come out, it it's it sort of receded further back in my mind. It was really big, I'd say, at a point. Then it got smaller and smaller because it's like this book is never going to come out, it's never gonna happen. If it does come out, it probably won't be that big a deal anyway. And and I'll be just like I am right now, just reading my comic books and trying to do a school play and and just wishing and a hoping and a dreaming that that someday somebody will say my name and then clap after it.

Crista Cowan 6:04

How many years was he giving this talk before 1976?

Chris Haley 6:09

Wow, I would it had to be on the short end, it would be five years. On the long end, it could have been 10 years.

Crista Cowan 6:21

So let me ask you this, right? So how old were you in 1976?

Chris Haley 6:27

I was just turning, I think I was just turning legal. So I was a teenager.

Crista Cowan 6:31

Okay, so you've spent, so you spent like the a decade or so leading up to this, kind of tuning in and out to your uncle at various times.

Dinner Table Stories And Georgia Trips

Crista Cowan 6:40

But stories that are told in the way that Alex told his story are really different than the way those same stories might be told around a kitchen table or at a family reunion. So, what did family storytelling look like in your family when you were growing up?

Chris Haley 6:58

I'd say for us, it was it was very, I would say, anecdotal in a way, which is you're you're sitting at the the dining room table and you're eating dinner. And this was at the time when, yes, we all got together, it's just the four of us, myself, my mother, my father, and my brother, and we would get together at a certain time and we would eat, whether we were playing or doing our homework. There was that specific hour or so where we'd all sit at the table and we would eat. And we would talk a little bit about school. Probably more than likely, it was my brother and myself leading the conversation about whatever school was going on, whatever future trips we had, which were trips that my mother usually would accompany as chaperone. And then I think when other family was around, is when my father or my mother might talk about other members of the family and what they had done or what their history was or what they were like. We would visit my mother's family, my mother's side of the family on her mother's side, either every Christmas or every summer for two weeks, which was my father's vacation window.

Crista Cowan 8:17

Where did they live?

Chris Haley 8:18

Oh, uh the Augusta, Georgia. Okay. Augusta, Georgia. So we'd go, we'd drive down south in one day. We we would get up very early in the morning when it was nighttime, and then we'd get there within light as well, as well. And I didn't understand what that was all about until later in life, and I realized probably because this is in the 60s, late 60s, or something, and there's still fear, there's still worry about a black family. Stand down laws, yeah. Absolutely. But I didn't know that as a kid. All I knew was dad wanted to make good time and get there and get there so that we'd be there the same day. And so the stories that would come up would be when we would be with other family members, such as my mother's grandmother and her great-grandmother, who I called Kuda Mama, and my grandmother, who I called Mother Pearl, my great-grandfather, who I called Daddy Hosey. And then they would talk about some of the how people were or what they used to do when they were a lot younger, within those family confines. As a young kid, often you're not engaged in that. You're not interested in old stories, you're not interested in any story outside of your story and what and what you're doing and what you're going to do. And when your parents say to you, well, when I was your age, you cut off your distance. Like, yeah, I know what you did because I used to try to do the same thing. No, you didn't. No, we don't believe that. You were never a kid. You were, and grandma was never a child. You just don't believe it. But I really value so much now, having been older or being older, is that I have the opportunity not only to do that when possible today, but to encourage others to talk to their older family member or uh the generation ahead of them, because you don't know when you'll be interested.

Crista Cowan 10:19

Right. Yeah, well said. Yeah. So you had these couple times a year visits down to Georgia with your mom's side of the family. Did your dad's side of the family all live kind of near you, or did you also have to travel to visit them?

Chris Haley 10:32

We did have to travel to visit them for a time, but around again the late 60s, early 70s, much of my father's family ended up migrating to the DMV, which is like the which is to say District of Columbia, Maryland, and Virginia.

Crista Cowan 10:51

Yeah.

Chris Haley 10:52

Uncle Alex was the only one of the four siblings who actually was still somewhere else touring or trying to get that book done. Whereas his three siblings literally were all had all moved to the DMV, which is kind of amazing. Because that's where we we the rest of us were when Roots came out.

Crista Cowan 11:14

And so did you know, you knew your grandparents on your mom's side. Did you know grandparents on your dad's side?

Chris Haley 11:20

Yes, I did. I did, I knew my grandfather really well. My grandfather lived until I was 14 years of age, and he lived with us until the time I was, I think, five, which again means five. What did you remember? Well, I remembered, I remembered enough to know that he lived with us. I remembered that there was when we moved to uh from an apartment to a house. I guess it was a house where he moved in with us. I think he was at the house for about two years or so. There was one room with just his room, and all of his stuff was there. And my brother and I were not supposed to go in that room, and not supposed to mess with granddad stuff. And the and he would walk me back and forth to school. But when I was just trying to learn, okay, this is the way, this is the direction you walk to school. And my grandmother, that they had separated. My grandfather and grandmother had separated. Ziona would visit, I'd say annually, biannually, because she lived in West Virginia.

Crista Cowan 12:20

Okay.

Chris Haley 12:21

And mostly she visited us more so than we visited her. And then she came to live in Annapolis too later on in her life. But at that point, it was much later because roots had already become a big thing then. So again, when I was very, very young, most of the trip traveling that we did was to Georgia. Otherwise, people, generally speaking, would visit us for whatever we we ended up being that hub, I guess, in a way, where people would come to and and and hang out for a while and just relate to us and let us know what was going on.

Crista Cowan 12:58

I love that. Well, with so many of you there, and then of course the tourist attraction that is, you know, our nation's capital. That kind of makes a little bit of sense, right?

Chris Haley 13:07

Exactly. It's so true. And that would give us a reason to go to the National Zoo or go to the monuments. I mean, it really was. It was great for us.

Crista Cowan 13:14

Well, that sounds delightful. I love that you have those connections with your family and had those growing

When Roots Lands And Eyes Turn

Crista Cowan 13:20

up. So you're at you're 18 years old, your uncle's book finally gets published after all that time. Right. Did that enter your consciousness at that point in your life? Or was it just, you know, what and what did that how did that change family dynamics or attention? The God's honest truth was why wasn't I in that mini series?

Chris Haley 13:40

It's like, why couldn't you have found me subspot in that miniseries? I wanted some parts so bad at that because I was really at the the crux of wanting to do that and being in the school plays and and reading biographies of uh movie stars and theater, theater performers. I mean, it was it was everything to me. So part of it was expect expectation, excitement, uh, potential, what does it mean? And also, I guess one could say pressure, because okay, now there could possibly be more attention paid to me if I if I am to audition for something. And then there's also the fear of that being of that connection being used against you because people will will will judge you more harshly than they might of anybody else. If you do get a part, it may people perhaps doubt that you got it because you honestly earned it. So that did become part of the I would say the switch that happened and because there was a perception that did happen. Sometimes a perception is your perception. You look in the mirror, you see yourself in whatever way you see yourself, but others see you in a different view, and and you ascribe your own view to yourself as well as what others ascribe to you. So that it was it was uh off-putting sometimes when people would think, oh, you're famous now, you must be rich, you you could be a famous after, you can do all these things, and then when that wasn't happening, then it would double your feeling of uh in order to put a nicer word, uh less than being successful because people are expecting you with this reality that the skies the limit to what you can now achieve because what somebody else has achieved. And in high school, but what is high school as what is grade school? It's it's a bowl of peer pressure. It's the world you live in where everybody is everybody is looking at you just like you're looking at everybody, and and college doesn't really get better. It's it's really a whole lot of uh people looking at you, and I went into the the English department was my major, but theater was my minor. And where were you going to school? University of Maryland, College Park. Okay. So still in the same area, the DMV, still still staying home. And why did I stay home? Basically, because I didn't want to put pressure on my parents to have to pay money, some kind of exorbitant tuition when realistically I didn't want to go to college. I wanted to go straight to Broadway, straight to New York, straight to LA, and and just do the acting career. That's all I wanted to do. And because college was not what I really wanted, I wanted to, if and college was not something they were going to allow me not to do, because education was big in my family. My grandfather and my my grandmother were both educators, so education was huge in their minds, and education meant a college degree. So I thought, well, let me take the least expensive because they were gonna pay for it, which is great too. My parents are paying for because otherwise I might have wanted to go to Northwestern or or uh Carnegie Mellon, NYU, the all these colleges that were famed for their theater and film programs. That's where I wanted to go, but that was gonna cost more money, and I didn't want to put that burden on my family because again, there's that fear. Well, what if I don't succeed?

Crista Cowan 17:41

You put us so much in the mind of this like 18-year-old, 19-year-old kid who just like has this dream and clearly you are motivated. You like you want this thing, but the respect for your family, like the way you balanced that, like that's really impressive because I think so many kids would just say, you know what? Like they would either be oblivious to the stress that their parents are under or they would, or they would feel entitled some way. I think a lot of kids today maybe feel that way. So the fact that you balanced that and made that life choice, I think that's a really beautiful thing and a testament to the to the family that your parents helped create. Um, I think that's just lovely. So here you are, this you know, young adult, right, having a college experience simultaneously while this book is being published, this miniseries is coming out, you're trying to pursue your own career, you're trying to balance what that means because you bear the Haley name. Like by the time you graduated, then what you know, what was the plan? Where did you end up?

Dinner Theater Hustle To New York

Crista Cowan 18:48

Where I ended up was not the plan.

Chris Haley 18:53

Well, before I graduated, I got my first professional theater job at Burn Bray Dinner Theater. That was my first professional paying theater job in dinner theater there. So that became kind of my path. Well, my path was always trying to be a professional actor and performer. That that was the the the goal. And it was like, how am I going to do this? And so that was the first one. And then I ended up being a colony seven dinner theater, and then I ended up being at at Harlequin Dinner Theater. And and that was for about three or four years. That's that was my life. One show to another show to another show, but but I loved it because it's what I always wanted to do, and and I became used to it.

Crista Cowan 19:39

Well, and was there ever a point at which you wanted to make the leap and moved to New York or moved to LA?

Chris Haley 19:45

Yes, and yes, and yes. So I mean, there was there was that point which I pursued because while I think after three years of pursuing professional theater here in DC, or let's say the DMV, I did start really auditioning more and more in New York. Because I had two very good friends who lived together in Queens, New York. And I would go there and I would find some audition and I'd have my little, and I'm not a dancer, but have my little dance shoes, have have my um my um my monologues, have my my sheet music, and go somewhere and audition. And then if I got called back, I'd be back there the next week doing the same thing again and be there staying, and then come back home Friday, Saturday, Sunday. And then do it over and over again. And that was my routine, and I use their address as if I had a New York address. Because that's part of the I don't, I don't know if that might, that's probably a thing today, where if you're an actor actress in New York or or somewhere else, but the New York people, they want to be able to get you when they get you. So if you're if you have a Maryland address and you're auditioning in New York, they're like, well, wait a minute, am I gonna call you and hope you can get a train in time? Am I gonna call this person who lives in Hoboken and they can keep the subway here? Chances are they're gonna go for the Hoboken before they're gonna go to Prince Doris County, Maryland, which is where I live now. So that was that was my reality for a while. So and then I ended up getting a job at a New York audition, which relocated me to Bridgeport, Connecticut, to the downtown Cabaret Theater.

Crista Cowan 21:31

Okay.

Chris Haley 21:32

And then I also would do industrial films, industrial films, which would be if you're talking about so like UPS.

Crista Cowan 21:43

Training videos or yeah, exactly.

Chris Haley 21:45

Training videos, and of course, at that point, I was a train, I was a Jerry Lewis who is the bumbling, stumbling person who gets something wrong, and then the person comes in and says, This is how you do it, and I would be the before, and the other person would be the after. And and that would be what But also pay the bills are those industrial films. And sometimes I would get a commercial here and there. But but that was the idea was that moving to Connecticut had me closer to the audition back and forth to New York. So once I was in Bridgeport, Connecticut, then I was even more so auditioning back and forth to New York. And full time, I became a singing, a costume singing telegram person. Literally, and I still have the red jacket today, which God knows I hope it doesn't still fit me. But but but yeah, and I was a gorilla, I was a green MM, I was a bumblebee. But the biggest thing I was was a top banana who was called Bambino.

Crista Cowan 22:44

Okay.

Chris Haley 22:44

That that was I was a top banana in let's say southern Connecticut or Southern or Central Banana. I was the one you would get, Crista, for your birthday. I'm the one who would show up in a seven-foot banana and sing you and make you laugh, and the the crowd would go wild. And I'd give you some balloons and maybe a little box of candy, and then I'd be off.

Crista Cowan 23:06

So your little boy heart had these dreams of having people applaud. I don't imagine people applauding after your singing telegram was what you had in mind. Right?

Chris Haley 23:17

Exactly.

Crista Cowan 23:19

So was your was your soul being fed by the work you were doing, or were you just still hustling? Or was my soul being sucked out dry? No.

Chris Haley 23:29

It really, it I would say not real, not as much as you might think, because at the same time, I was usually performing in a show. So I would do the singing title gram during the day, and then I probably would have a show where I could be quote unquote legit uh at at night or on the weekend.

Crista Cowan 23:46

So was there some um some pinnacle of your acting career, or like was there a moment where you like decided to make the shift into what you're doing now? Like what did that journey look like?

Chris Haley 23:58

Well, uh the the journey became the journey switched from while I was still in Connecticut, while I was still auditioning, one of the auditions that I got in New York was to Universal Studios, Florida, which would mean relocation from Ridgeport, Connecticut to Orlando, Florida. But it's a full-time job.

Crista Cowan 24:21

And at this point, you've been hustling for what? Like in this case?

Chris Haley 24:24

Yeah. Exactly. And and the and quite frankly, the balloon job was dying out. So it really was like you either need to move back home or you need to move to California. Because the other thing was, and sometimes I do kick myself about this too, quite frankly, is that my mother passed away in 1988. And so it was an accident with a cab, a taxi cab. So there was a license or a settlement. Boy, talk about genealogy, family history. Here we go. But so there was there was an amount of money that my father got from the insurance, and he offered, he offered to pay me, I don't know, or give me enough money to cover one year of my going to California and trying to make it.

Crista Cowan 25:14

What a what a gift to have a father that believes in you that much. Oh my God.

Chris Haley 25:19

Oh my God. But who am I, Trista? I am that guy who did not want to put the burden on them to go to an expensive college. And so what do I say? No, Dad. Thank you, but no, I I I'm gonna make it on my own. And so I mean, so many different times. It was like, who are you? Did you really want this? When opportunity knocks, you have to take it. And I'm like, no, no, that's too much. I'm gonna, I'm not gonna put you in debt because again, I I think maybe there's that terrible fear that if I don't make it, I've made you spend $20,000 or whatever the song was for me to pursue this dream. And and and maybe it's it's not gonna happen. And that and I feel so awful that I made you do that. So Universal Studios happened. I take that job, I go there, and I work full-time as an actor on the lot and did that for three years. And and I really I liked being there. I liked having my own life. I liked Orlando. It was hot, but I liked. While I was there, Queen happened. And Queen happened around the same time that Uncle Alex passed

Choosing Genealogy Over Applause

Chris Haley 26:40

away.

Crista Cowan 26:40

Uh-huh.

Chris Haley 26:41

He was also 92, February 92. Okay. When he passed away, people had never stopped saying, Well, you already know your family history, you already know who you are. And I would say, well, no, my mother has something to do with that. Roots and Queen were on my father's side. And that's what made me start thinking, maybe I should start doing genealogy myself to honor my mother. Literally, that's what to honor my mother. I should look into that side of my family as well. So I needed to search out possibilities or opportunities where I can learn how to be a certifiable genealogist. That means a lot of things. Yeah, that's but but but but but somebody who really knew what history was and what a primary source document is.

Crista Cowan 27:30

So you viewed like your uncle's journey when all of that controversy came out more as like he was a storyteller and he was a brilliant storyteller, but he wasn't like a hardcore genealogist who followed genealogy standards. And that's kind of like most people just kind of accept that now. But at the time, uh I imagine for you being part of that legacy, there was probably a little bit of hesitancy to dive maybe back into that in a public way, right?

Chris Haley 27:58

Oh, yeah. I mean, the in this in the same way, if not more so, than how I kind of feared that if I get big opportunities in theater, people are going to think, oh, well, you only got that because of your uncle. I was thinking that if I go to the journey into genealogy or really go into family history, people will question every single thing I do to such a final degree, a finite degree, because it's there. It because that's what they do with the Haley now. That's what so there was that that element of you have to do this right because they are going to pick apart any and everything you do. And and do I really want to go down that path? Even though it may have an entree, it'll also have the flip side that it's not so pleasant when people are quit. Acting in and of itself is a subjective art. People can love Lawrence Olivier, they can love Denzel Washington, they can think, oh, they're just over the top. Oh my gosh, that's too much. And in history, I have found that history has almost as many people who scrutinize your findings as people will scrutinize your acting choices. I I truly have found that in these two fields, which is maybe some reason why I've been attacking to both of them. There's that interactiveness that's a part of it. So that made it very, very scary actually to go down. But I love it. And ever since I've been a part of it, I I I truly do love it, I truly do appreciate it, I truly do promote it, and I truly do love those such as yourself who have embraced it and are people who who are symbols and representative and inspirations to others. I I think that's such a great, a great and an admirable thing that I wish my uncle had. I I wish he had had others at that point who could have really reminded him of just how influential in a positive way it was. And I do think he felt that. However, I also know that when you become that huge, the slings and arrows are also ever constant or ever just outside of arm's reach. And and it's and it's I mean, it's hard for me because I get random emails, a random text message from people I know not who say some disparaging thing about my family and by connection about me. And I'm thinking, I don't know you. Do I owe you a five dollars? What did I do? And it's it's just crazy. And I think about some people who are so, so, so famous beyond my family's uh profile, like the Kennedys or like you name it, famous family, and how challenging it is for them to live a day-to-day life when you are in or somebody in your family is in the public eye. And and Uncle Alex has I think it's seven statues or something. I've only really seen two, but statues dedicated memorials of his likeness. And that's that's an um an amazing thing, especially from a kid who wondered what it would ever be like to have a famous relative.

Calling Strangers And Finding Kin

Crista Cowan 31:42

So as you started exploring your mom's family, were there any like stories that you discovered like that you just were like, this is a story I want to tell?

Chris Haley 31:53

There are so many stories in there which which I think are not only fascinating, encouraging, but dramatic, uh inspirational, heartbreaking. I mean, it's it really is elements of almost one would think it is written for television. And maybe everybody feels like they have that. And it makes me think also it makes me kind of worried too, because some of the stories are not pleasant, but I mean, that's also the the journey we fearlessly take if we want to go through genealogy, is that not everybody, if you go in your past, is going to be a king or a queen or or a school teacher or someone who lived their life with one spouse for eternity. It's it's there are going to be divorces, there are going to be alcoholics, there are going to be alleged murders. And yes, I am talking about my my family. I mean, there are going to be those things. There's going to be people who were born out of wedlock and maybe they don't know it, and you find this out, and then you think, should I tell this person or not what I have found? And should I write about it? Because that's that was part of what I want to write it for me. I want to write it because I think it's worth sharing. I think it's worth putting forth. So I'll give you one example because I because I mean that was the the point of it. Was and again, it reinforces the power, and I think what can be a very inspirational and fulfilling aspect of Jewan family history, which is to say I just when I decided to research my mother's side of the family, I started to go down my mother's, my mother's mother's mother's side. So my great-grandmother's eternal great-grandmother, who as I said before, it was named Kuda Kuda Mama. Her real name was Ida Allen. My or or Ida Hankerson. And I was told that my and it made sense from a visual point of view that my great-grandmother's mother and father could not get married because her father was white and her mother was black. So having heard that story, I was also told that my great-great-grandfather, who was white, and my great-great-grandmother, who was black, had two children, of which my great-grandmother Ida was the older daughter. There was also a daughter named Bertha. So those were the two children that they had. Later in life, there was a third half-sister called Lizzie, who we called Aunt Frizzly growing up. And I don't know why. I guess because she had dark hair. Aunt Frizzly was very dark-skinned. My great-grandmother was very light-skinned. But I had been told that the family, the white family that was the parent, the father's side, the great-great-grandfather side, was named Fulcher. So again, 20, 30 years ago, how do you find people? You pick up the yellow pages and you start ringing, dinging, dinging, dinging ding. No cell phone, no this, no that. Again, my mother had passed away, and I started calling Fultures in the phone book in Richmond County, Georgia. One of the persons who did answer the phone. I don't know exactly how I got it across, but I said, hi, my name is Chris, whatever, and I'm trying to do my family history, my genealogy. And I was worried because I thought, how will this come across? Because I'm a black kid, and literally I'm talking to a white family about what I believe is confirming the story about my great-great-grandmother had children with your great-great-grandfather who was white. And so, is this something that somebody wants to hear about at all, wants to talk about at all? And I said, I believe that my great-great-grandmother may have worked for your family. And that's how I broached it. And and I don't know if she says that, well, well, what was she like? I said, Well, her name was Lizzie Hankerson, and she had two daughters, one was named Ida, and one was named Bertha. And she said, Oh, you're talking about Uncle Charlie's kids. She literally said that. Because my my great-grandfather grandfather's name was Charles Fulcher. And then it came to be that she was the second wife of her husband, who was, I think, a nephew or of Charles Fulcher's brother, John. And she had started doing the family history. So she had found this out. And she knew.

Crista Cowan 37:11

And she knew.

Chris Haley 37:12

So, and again, I say that, and and I when I've said that before, and I know it's so great because you your audience and having you as a guide can coach them and to say that this isn't just because he lucked out or because he's a Haley. It just sometimes it happens. Don't think it's gonna happen all the time, don't think it's always gonna be pleasant, but it didn't happen. And and and because of that, I ended up meeting her. We had breakfast at a Waffle House in Georgia. She shared with me a photograph, a copy of John W. Fulcher, who is my great-great-great-grandfather, who was a colonel in the Civil War on the Confederate side. Wow. Who lived approximate to the same years as Chicken George, who, of course, is my great-great-great-grandfather on my father's mother's side. And I when I do presentations about genealogy, I I often start then with those two pictures of those two great, great, great, great grandfathers. Both of these men are a part of my life, yeah, are a part of my genealogy. And that's one of the things that I feel like is so inspirational and encouraging about taking this journey, which is what my uncle really, I guess, pushed and pursued because of oral histories that he heard, and what I pursued because of some oral history that I heard, or some stories that I heard, and you just try to go deeper to see what you can confirm and what you could find out, and and sometimes it's not the best stories, but sometimes it's it's really good connections.

Researching The Family Nobody Discussed

Chris Haley 39:01

I mean, I another one I'll I'll share with you is that on my mother's father's side, which was an even more challenging path, because my mother was estranged from her father, to the point where we really didn't talk about him at all when I was growing up. And I'm and me, it was it was to make her angry, upset, cry if we were to really sort of talk about it. So my father, my brother, and I wouldn't talk about it. It was like that that portion of our family was literally cut off. However, when I decided to do genealogy, such as I'm chatting on you right now, I thought it's not good or authentic or whatever of me to say to other people, yes, I really love genealogy, I think it's great, I think it's really worthwhile. If at the same time I say, Oh, I'm not gonna do that though. I because yes, right, right. I'm I'm not gonna go down that path because it might be uncomfortable, it might be it might be awkward. And and I would say, I mean, realistically, even having thought that that would not be that would be disingenuous or hypocritical of me. I did go to my father though, because again, my mother had passed away and it would be two years before it I said, Dad, what do you feel about this? He did not discourage me, he understood it. I I think he sort of accepted and knew that I don't know if he ever said to me, I don't think your mother would want this. I don't think he said, because some because he was all on board when the connection was made. And how did that connection be was made? Again, I go back to the phone book. My father had told me what he believed my great-grandmother's name was, which was Hattie Wright, and that she lived in Fairfax County, Virginia. And this was the last address or whatever phone number that I had. So I started calling. I started calling. I think I called three rights. I got you one right, and I was saying, this is Hattie. I'm calling for Hattie Wright. And before it said that, before that that Hattie Wright was broached, the person said Taco Bell. And I said, What? I said, Yeah, Taco Bell. I said, I'm I'm sorry. I is this a number? And I spent the number out and said, Yes, Taco Bell. I said, Okay, well, I must have the wrong number. So I hung up, checked the number, and I dialed back. Hi, Taco Bell.

Crista Cowan 41:32

Really?

Chris Haley 41:33

So that was the second time. And I don't know if it was that second call or the third call when literally, and I guess this is when you start making things up in your mind, you try to justify things. I thought, wait a minute, at this point, this is 1993, because I hadn't researched enough to know when approximately I thought she was born, which would be 1893. My great-grandmother would be a hundred years old. I thought, I thought either either she sold her property, and the property was now the site of a Taco Bell, and somehow they took the same phone number, or literally, and again, this is your mind just trying to reach for things. My 100-year-old great-grandmother is working at a Taco Bell because she can really sling those tacos and she can flip those, you know, Ancheladas. I thought, this is really crazy. And then I think I finally said, Well, this is what I'm doing. And I'm trying to reach uh Hattie Wright. I'm her great great grandson. He said, Okay, hold on a minute. And that no, that's what I thought. Oh my god, she's working there. When they said, Oh my God, hold hold for a moment. And then it turned out my Aunt Edna, who was her daughter, my grandfather's sister, it was their house. And the grandkids lived at the house, and they were just playing. And so that was my Aunt Edna, who was like 87 years old, and my great-grandmother was still alive, and she was there in the house. That is amazing. It was amazing. And so we ended up knowing each other for five years. She lived to be 105 years old.

Crista Cowan 43:12

What? That is old school family history right there. Old school family history. Oh my gosh. It's just it's just amazing. Yeah. That is so cool. Well, so um, so you came into family history because of your own curiosity about your mother's side of the family. You felt empowered to do that. You it sounds like you've made some incredible discoveries. Um, how did you like how did you end up with the Maryland State Archives?

A Job At The Maryland State Archives

Chris Haley 43:39

Because when I was making this not a switch, but the adding on to my passion looking into genealogy because of my mother. Because at the same time, I did want to move to California. I I really did. And the plan was be around the end. Of my time at Universal, which was 1993, my father said, I think again, he said, I will loan you somebody to get you to move out there. But again, who am I? No, I can't take that from you. So um, I wanted to know how to do this, quote unquote, the right way. And my father said, Well, I know someone who helped your fat your uncle do his research. Her name is Phoebe Jacobson, and she is in Annapolis, Maryland, at the Maryland State Archives. And maybe she can give you some advice. So I ended up calling her. I ended up talking also with someone named Jimmy Walker, not a good task fame.

Crista Cowan 44:45

No, I know who Jimmy Walker is.

Chris Haley 44:47

Yeah, Jimmy Walker, who was very kind and generous and spoke to me for a while. And because I was so new to the to the world of genealogy, I I probably it's probably good because I probably would have been too flummoxed to have said any two words if I knew who Jimmy Walker really was with the whole Library of Congress and National Archives and Freeman Records and all what he was. But he talked to me for a little bit and gave me advice. And then I talked to Phoebe. And then once I moved back here after leaving Orlando, she was the one who really gave me advice about research in general, historical research in general, that laws were the things she focused on. Laws define a culture. If you know what the laws are, that you know what the people are, they're doing, they make a law either because of something that is happening, might happen, or has happened. So that stick was sticks with me to this day. And talk to me about genealogy as far as the vital records that yet you look through. I don't know if she really talks so much about what my uncle did, but she talked about what I could do to try to look further for my own genealogy. And since she was at the archives, and since at that point I needed a job, and I thought I was gonna move back to Maryland for one year, save up money, and then move to California. That was it, that was the plan then. So, where was I gonna earn money? At the Library of Congress, because I wanted to do genealogy and learn how to do it better, or at the National Archives, because I wanted to do genealogy to learn how to do it better, or at this thing I never heard of, called the Maryland State Archives in Annapolis. The other two weren't hiring the Maryland State Archives was. And I ended up talking to the state archivist then, Edward C. Papercruz, after whom the building is now named. And he instructed the person who was head of reference services to hire me to be one of the first two phone reference archivists there at the Maryland State Archives who were accepting calls from whoever, wherever, about stuff that they were doing. And so that's what started me on that that path to got me connected to the Maryland State Archives. And eight years, see, that's 1993, and in 2001 is when it sort of switches for me, where I'm reacquainted or re-energized toward my path of always wanting to look into black history, which was as a kid, as I mentioned earlier, I was always about black history as much as I was about theater and performing, I was always interested in black history.

Beneath The Underground Takes Shape

Chris Haley 47:27

And then around that time of 2001, there was a task force to study the legacy of slavery in Maryland. It's a longer title, but that's shortened it down. At that point, I was the deputy or associate director of reference services in charge of the volunteer program at the Maryland State Archives. And a volunteer named Jerry Henson, who was very big into genealogy and very big into specifically African-American genealogy, mining records, mining court records, mining county jail records, came to me with this citation of an individual named Aaron Salisbury, who was found guilty of aiding two enslaved people to it to run away from two other enslavers. And I thought this might have something to do with the Underground Railroad. Because it's not going to say that, but Jerry, I'd like you to keep following up on this. And I engaged two other volunteers to do this with him. And so those three persons were the first ones who began actively pursuing what became known then as the Underground Railroad Project. Subsequent to that, in 2005, we got this, in 2004, we got this huge grant from the Department of Education, post-secondary education, underground railroad program. And that gave us a large enough appropriation that we were able to hire four people full-time to work on the Underground Railroad Project, which had then become called the Beneath the Underground, because it wasn't just about the Underground Railroad Project. It was about those persons who perhaps of their own volition escaped, so assisted flight. In 2005, I took over being director of that program officially at that point. And then it became the legacy of slavery and Maryland program, which is what it is today, 25 years later. And I've had over a hundred some people who've worked on it, and we've won so many. We're a designated site for research for the National Park Service Network to Freedom. We've been involved with the the Harriet Tubman Center, which was created after about 10 years too, and Dwarf Rochester County. It's just so much. And I'm really very proud of it.

Crista Cowan 49:51

You should be proud of it, Chris. Oh my goodness. I'm thinking, like, I came into this conversation, I think, with an expectation of celebrating Roots, and I yeah, and we should. Roots was such a moment in history where your uncle told a story that I think galvanized an entire nation around the idea that family history was possible for the average person, right? Prior to that, it had been the realm of nobility and the realm of the upper class, but now it became accessible to everyone. And the fact that you found yourself then at a switch point in your life where you picked up that baton. He created a movement, but you have created a legacy with this project. And I think that that is so beautiful. And I was not expecting to hear that story. So thank you for sharing that. But more importantly, thank you for the work that you have done. That is that is incredible. That is so amazing. Thank you for sharing

Roots 50 Tour And Why Celebrate

Crista Cowan 50:47

that. Well, so I'd love um just to kind of round this out, you have um been working with um Roots 50 Tour. Tell us about that and and what that's all about.

Chris Haley 50:58

Yeah, that is scheduled for August 7th, 8th, and 9th. And I mean, it anyone could be a part of it. We would love for anybody to be a part of it because it's it's it's to be reflective of everybody because Roots is a intended to be a universal story. Wow, focused on an African American family. It's a universal story of the roots of any and all of us who have generations that we're interested in, or that that quite frankly are probably interested in us and what we do and what and what we have put forth and what we carry on with. And the first day is going to be at City Doc in Annapolis, that's where it's going to begin with a libation and also some I think a panel where we talk about the importance of legacy, the importance of family heritage, then some entertainment, some singing, some um performances by people in the area. Then the next day a bus takes you to Fredericksburg, where there's other historical institutions that we were also journeyed to, and and have some more interaction and fellowship. And I and I think actually go to another Fredericksburg Museum, and then overnight, and then the next day we end up at Sponsorvania, which is where Kucha Kente ended up with the Waller family. I think more of a celebration at that point, because one of the things that I think we wanted to reflect on is that this is a 50th anniversary of a very positive accomplishment. It isn't the 50th anniversary of woe is me, woe are black people, and slavery. It's it's a celebration of the recognition of the commemoration of a story and subsequently a miniseries, that's 50 years next year, that brought a nation together, as you said, Crista, that that made it not less not less, more of a possibility that let's say a middle class person can go and do their genealogy. And they don't have to be, as you said, nobility or what have you, who has the wherewithal, has the means, has the the heritage worth finding. It's it's for any and all of us to feel galvanized and encouraged and inspired to look further into their their their history.

Crista Cowan 53:43

I love that that concept of of marking time, right? And having events of celebration to do that. So I love that you're involved in this and and promoting this, and we'll certainly do our part to promote this as well. Thank you. This is this is great, Crista.

Chris Haley 53:59

Really good bravo for all your work and and inspiration and what you put put out there. It's just really, really inspiring. It just is.

Crista Cowan 54:09

Well,

One Word One Story Road Trip

Crista Cowan 54:10

thank you so much. Well, so um, before I let you go, we have a new segment to the podcast, and it's a little bit like an improv game. Oh, I love improv. I figured you might. It's called One Word, One Story. So I'm gonna reach into the drawer and I'm gonna draw a random word, and then I'm gonna need you to tell me what the first story is that comes to mind. So today's word, today's word or phrase in this case is road trip.

Chris Haley 54:43

Okay. Now this, oh gosh, oh my gosh. Now we're putting it. See, now wasn't really a road trip. I don't know. See, that's I've written seven poetry collections. And um this put in mind that there was this, and I told you early on that every summer we would visit my mother's family in Georgia. And again, very, very young kid. And I remember let me say, and I wrote a poem about it because it struck me because again, the things that that strike you later on, and you realize later that just some things are not what they seem. So road trip, and this poem I wrote is called I Remember the Billboard. I remember the billboard with the man aloft the horse, riding high in the sky, a giant hunting for prey, staring as we drove by. Dark holes shielded his eyes as we crossed state lines. Painted words shouted, You're now entering clan country. In the back seat, I muffled a cry. Though to some you are a welcome, to a transfixed child, you are a horrid sight. I'm sure several cheered your message. It was this black boy you met at your fright. I know I might never know when you were built. I vaguely recall where you stood. But I'll remember until the day I die, the billboard of the man with a hood. And then this is that illustration that my brother drew for me for the book.

Crista Cowan 56:28

That's really powerful.

Chris Haley 56:31

You can thank you. You can actually, because it was so long ago. Of course it was so long ago. I I don't know if it's like that for you. I imagine it is for all of us. You start doubting, is this really what happened? Is this really what I saw? And so I did check, and I was able to find still images out there of signs with a man riding a horse crossing from I think it was North Carolina into South Carolina. And I and I do remember that.

Crista Cowan 57:02

Hate to be a downer, but but no, but that's it's so interesting to me, though, that like we have memories or experiences as children and then look back on them with more information with our adult brains and our adult experiences. And they sometimes mean something entirely different than they meant at the time. Um, so I'll share my my road trip uh thing that came to mind is a little bit more lighthearted. Um, my my parents, I I told this story way back in season one on our Valentine's Day episode, but my parents met on a four-day blind date that was a road trip from Long Beach, California up to Salt Lake City and back. And um, and they were engaged 15 days after they got home from that trip. Oh my gosh. And they are still married 55 years later. It is, but my mother always told me never marry a man unless you have road tripped with him because nobody can hide who they are for 24 hours a day. Oh my gosh, that's awesome. I have road tripped with every man I have seriously dated, and that maybe why I am still single. That's too funny. That is too funny. I love that. So there's there's my road trip. What story came to mind when you heard today's word? Tell me in the comments.

Chris Haley 58:26

Now you know that it's a sitcom. I know you're full-time at Ancestry.com, but that is that is this that is the genesis, if genesis is the right word, of a sitcom.

Crista Cowan 58:37

Well, maybe we'll have to start another show.

Chris Haley 58:40

Yes, exactly. That's perfect. Oh my gosh.

Crista Cowan 58:44

Well, and and maybe and maybe maybe there would be a role in it for you after all, Chris.

Chris Haley 58:49

I I will love that. I would have that would that would make my heart hit or patch.

Crista Cowan 58:54

Well, thank you. It was so nice to get to know you better and feel like we are friends, and the next time we come across each other at a genealogy conference, I will certainly seek you out.

Final Thoughts And Sign Off

Chris Haley 59:12

Studio sponsored by Ancestry.