Latest / Stories That Live In Us / Alex Haley is My Uncle: The Rest of the Story of My Family “Roots” (with Chris Haley) | Episode 122

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Alex Haley is My Uncle: The Rest of the Story of My Family “Roots” (with Chris Haley) | Episode 122 · Stories That Live In Us

0:00
Crista Cowan: Alex Haley searched for history and found fame.
0:03
Crista Cowan: His nephew Chris Haley searched for fame and found history.
0:07
Crista Cowan: 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.
0:21
Crista Cowan: 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.
0:32
Crista Cowan: His nephew Chris Haley spent decades chasing fame one audition after another, only to discover his true calling wasn't under the spotlight.
0:41
Crista Cowan: But deep inside those same historical archives.
0:45
Crista Cowan: Today, Chris is the director of the study of the legacy of slavery at the Maryland State Archives.
0:51
Crista Cowan: But despite carrying one of the most famous names in American literature, he insisted on carving his own path.
0:59
Crista Cowan: 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.
1:10
Crista Cowan: Enjoy my conversation with Chris Haley.
1:13
Crista Cowan: Hi, I'm Crista Cowan, and this is the podcast where telling your family stories can help create a deeply connected family.
1:22
Crista Cowan: Welcome to Stories That Live In Us.
1:25
Crista Cowan: Chris, thank you so much for being here.
1:32
Crista Cowan: I'm super excited to have this conversation with you to learn more about what you're doing.
1:37
Crista Cowan: But I'd love to kind of just step back in time and talk a little bit about your family and your family heritage.
1:44
Crista Cowan: For those who don't know, uh you are connected to Alex Haley and to his book Roots.
1:51
Crista Cowan: 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.
2:02
Chris Haley: Thank you, Crista.
2:02
Chris Haley: 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.
2:12
Chris Haley: And I love that because I think that's so true and so much a part of what genealogy and family history is.
2:18
Chris Haley: 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.
2:29
Chris Haley: It's just being very basic and down to earth, and just asking people, what's the name of your f father?
2:35
Chris Haley: What's the name of your mother?
2:36
Chris Haley: Uh, are you part of that kin or that kin?
2:38
Chris Haley: It's it's to me, it's always been that basic, is how you can move forward.
2:43
Chris Haley: So with that saying, with that said, for myself, being being being, I was very young then.
2:50
Chris Haley: And and Uncle Alex, who we then called Uncle Palmer, was not always famous.
2:57
Chris Haley: Ruth was not always a a reality in our in our life in our lives.
3:02
Chris Haley: 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.
3:12
Chris Haley: And when I was old enough to recognize what he was doing, it was that I knew he was a writer.
3:20
Chris Haley: I knew that very often he would show up in D.C.
3:23
Chris Haley: 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.
3:36
Chris Haley: And I don't even know if I knew then it was about our family.
3:40
Chris Haley: It was just there was a book he was writing, and people constantly wanted to see him talk about it.
3:46
Chris Haley: And I I believe I might have gone once to one of these talks because he didn't talk for a minute.
3:56
Chris Haley: I mean, it was an hour or two hours straight.
3:59
Chris Haley: And it wasn't broken up by entertainment or or or the dance routines, or it was just him just talking.
4:07
Chris Haley: 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.
4:21
Chris Haley: So that's really all I generally got out of it.
4:25
Chris Haley: But I just knew there was something potentially big going.
4:30
Chris Haley: 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.
4:46
Chris Haley: So I fantasize a lot about being famous and everybody knowing my name and performing.
4:52
Chris Haley: So I do believe that relatively early on, I also entertained the fantasy of what would it be like to have a famous relative?
5:04
Chris Haley: 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.
5:23
Chris Haley: And that was something that I started to consider.
5:26
Chris Haley: 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.
5:40
Chris Haley: It was really big, I'd say, at a point.
5:42
Chris Haley: Then it got smaller and smaller because it's like this book is never going to come out, it's never gonna happen.
5:47
Chris Haley: If it does come out, it probably won't be that big a deal anyway.
5:51
Chris Haley: 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.
6:04
Crista Cowan: How many years was he giving this talk before 1976?
6:09
Chris Haley: Wow, I would it had to be on the short end, it would be five years.
6:18
Chris Haley: On the long end, it could have been 10 years.
6:21
Crista Cowan: So let me ask you this, right?
6:23
Crista Cowan: So how old were you in 1976?
6:27
Chris Haley: I was just turning, I think I was just turning legal.
6:30
Chris Haley: So I was a teenager.
6:31
Crista Cowan: 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.
6:40
Crista Cowan: 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.
6:52
Crista Cowan: So, what did family storytelling look like in your family when you were growing up?
6:58
Chris Haley: 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.
7:09
Chris Haley: 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.
7:19
Chris Haley: There was that specific hour or so where we'd all sit at the table and we would eat.
7:24
Chris Haley: And we would talk a little bit about school.
7:26
Chris Haley: 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.
7:42
Chris Haley: 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.
8:03
Chris Haley: 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.
8:17
Crista Cowan: Where did they live?
8:18
Chris Haley: Oh, uh the Augusta, Georgia.
8:20
Chris Haley: Okay.
8:21
Chris Haley: Augusta, Georgia.
8:22
Chris Haley: So we'd go, we'd drive down south in one day.
8:25
Chris Haley: 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.
8:32
Chris Haley: 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.
8:41
Chris Haley: Stand down laws, yeah.
8:43
Chris Haley: Absolutely.
8:44
Chris Haley: But I didn't know that as a kid.
8:46
Chris Haley: 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.
8:53
Chris Haley: 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.
9:10
Chris Haley: 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.
9:22
Chris Haley: As a young kid, often you're not engaged in that.
9:25
Chris Haley: 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.
9:36
Chris Haley: And when your parents say to you, well, when I was your age, you cut off your distance.
9:42
Chris Haley: Like, yeah, I know what you did because I used to try to do the same thing.
9:45
Chris Haley: No, you didn't.
9:46
Chris Haley: No, we don't believe that.
9:48
Chris Haley: You were never a kid.
9:49
Chris Haley: You were, and grandma was never a child.
9:52
Chris Haley: You just don't believe it.
9:54
Chris Haley: 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.
10:19
Crista Cowan: Right.
10:19
Crista Cowan: Yeah, well said.
10:21
Crista Cowan: Yeah.
10:21
Crista Cowan: So you had these couple times a year visits down to Georgia with your mom's side of the family.
10:26
Crista Cowan: Did your dad's side of the family all live kind of near you, or did you also have to travel to visit them?
10:32
Chris Haley: 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.
10:51
Crista Cowan: Yeah.
10:52
Chris Haley: Uncle Alex was the only one of the four siblings who actually was still somewhere else touring or trying to get that book done.
11:02
Chris Haley: Whereas his three siblings literally were all had all moved to the DMV, which is kind of amazing.
11:09
Chris Haley: Because that's where we we the rest of us were when Roots came out.
11:14
Crista Cowan: And so did you know, you knew your grandparents on your mom's side.
11:17
Crista Cowan: Did you know grandparents on your dad's side?
11:20
Chris Haley: Yes, I did.
11:20
Chris Haley: I did, I knew my grandfather really well.
11:22
Chris Haley: 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.
11:32
Chris Haley: What did you remember?
11:33
Chris Haley: Well, I remembered, I remembered enough to know that he lived with us.
11:37
Chris Haley: I remembered that there was when we moved to uh from an apartment to a house.
11:40
Chris Haley: I guess it was a house where he moved in with us.
11:43
Chris Haley: I think he was at the house for about two years or so.
11:45
Chris Haley: There was one room with just his room, and all of his stuff was there.
11:49
Chris Haley: And my brother and I were not supposed to go in that room, and not supposed to mess with granddad stuff.
11:54
Chris Haley: And the and he would walk me back and forth to school.
11:59
Chris Haley: But when I was just trying to learn, okay, this is the way, this is the direction you walk to school.
12:05
Chris Haley: And my grandmother, that they had separated.
12:10
Chris Haley: My grandfather and grandmother had separated.
12:12
Chris Haley: Ziona would visit, I'd say annually, biannually, because she lived in West Virginia.
12:20
Crista Cowan: Okay.
12:21
Chris Haley: And mostly she visited us more so than we visited her.
12:25
Chris Haley: And then she came to live in Annapolis too later on in her life.
12:30
Chris Haley: But at that point, it was much later because roots had already become a big thing then.
12:34
Chris Haley: So again, when I was very, very young, most of the trip traveling that we did was to Georgia.
12:42
Chris Haley: 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.
12:58
Crista Cowan: I love that.
12:59
Crista Cowan: Well, with so many of you there, and then of course the tourist attraction that is, you know, our nation's capital.
13:05
Crista Cowan: That kind of makes a little bit of sense, right?
13:07
Chris Haley: Exactly.
13:07
Chris Haley: It's so true.
13:08
Chris Haley: And that would give us a reason to go to the National Zoo or go to the monuments.
13:12
Chris Haley: I mean, it really was.
13:13
Chris Haley: It was great for us.
13:14
Crista Cowan: Well, that sounds delightful.
13:15
Crista Cowan: I love that you have those connections with your family and had those growing up.
13:20
Crista Cowan: So you're at you're 18 years old, your uncle's book finally gets published after all that time.
13:26
Crista Cowan: Right.
13:27
Crista Cowan: Did that enter your consciousness at that point in your life?
13:30
Crista Cowan: Or was it just, you know, what and what did that how did that change family dynamics or attention?
13:35
Crista Cowan: The God's honest truth was why wasn't I in that mini series?
13:40
Chris Haley: It's like, why couldn't you have found me subspot in that miniseries?
13:44
Chris Haley: 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.
13:59
Chris Haley: I mean, it was it was everything to me.
14:02
Chris Haley: So part of it was expect expectation, excitement, uh, potential, what does it mean?
14:13
Chris Haley: 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.
14:26
Chris Haley: 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.
14:45
Chris Haley: If you do get a part, it may people perhaps doubt that you got it because you honestly earned it.
14:52
Chris Haley: So that did become part of the I would say the switch that happened and because there was a perception that did happen.
15:04
Chris Haley: Sometimes a perception is your perception.
15:06
Chris Haley: 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.
15:18
Chris Haley: 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.
15:52
Chris Haley: And in high school, but what is high school as what is grade school?
15:57
Chris Haley: It's it's a bowl of peer pressure.
16:02
Chris Haley: 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.
16:15
Chris Haley: 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.
16:26
Chris Haley: And where were you going to school?
16:28
Chris Haley: University of Maryland, College Park.
16:30
Chris Haley: Okay.
16:31
Chris Haley: So still in the same area, the DMV, still still staying home.
16:35
Chris Haley: And why did I stay home?
16:37
Chris Haley: 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.
16:46
Chris Haley: I wanted to go straight to Broadway, straight to New York, straight to LA, and and just do the acting career.
16:51
Chris Haley: That's all I wanted to do.
16:53
Chris Haley: 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.
17:07
Chris Haley: My grandfather and my my grandmother were both educators, so education was huge in their minds, and education meant a college degree.
17:17
Chris Haley: So I thought, well, let me take the least expensive because they were gonna pay for it, which is great too.
17:22
Chris Haley: 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.
17:33
Chris Haley: 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.
17:39
Chris Haley: Well, what if I don't succeed?
17:41
Crista Cowan: 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.
17:51
Crista Cowan: 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?
18:03
Crista Cowan: Like they would either be oblivious to the stress that their parents are under or they would, or they would feel entitled some way.
18:10
Crista Cowan: I think a lot of kids today maybe feel that way.
18:12
Crista Cowan: 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.
18:23
Crista Cowan: Um, I think that's just lovely.
18:24
Crista Cowan: 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.
18:42
Crista Cowan: Like by the time you graduated, then what you know, what was the plan?
18:46
Crista Cowan: Where did you end up?
18:47
Crista Cowan: Where I ended up was not the plan.
18:53
Chris Haley: Well, before I graduated, I got my first professional theater job at Burn Bray Dinner Theater.
19:00
Chris Haley: That was my first professional paying theater job in dinner theater there.
19:06
Chris Haley: So that became kind of my path.
19:10
Chris Haley: Well, my path was always trying to be a professional actor and performer.
19:14
Chris Haley: That that was the the the goal.
19:16
Chris Haley: And it was like, how am I going to do this?
19:19
Chris Haley: And so that was the first one.
19:21
Chris Haley: And then I ended up being a colony seven dinner theater, and then I ended up being at at Harlequin Dinner Theater.
19:27
Chris Haley: And and that was for about three or four years.
19:30
Chris Haley: That's that was my life.
19:32
Chris Haley: 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.
19:39
Crista Cowan: Well, and was there ever a point at which you wanted to make the leap and moved to New York or moved to LA?
19:45
Chris Haley: Yes, and yes, and yes.
19:46
Chris Haley: 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.
20:07
Chris Haley: Because I had two very good friends who lived together in Queens, New York.
20:11
Chris Haley: 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.
20:24
Chris Haley: 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.
20:32
Chris Haley: And then do it over and over again.
20:35
Chris Haley: And that was my routine, and I use their address as if I had a New York address.
20:40
Chris Haley: 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.
20:55
Chris Haley: 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?
21:04
Chris Haley: Am I gonna call this person who lives in Hoboken and they can keep the subway here?
21:09
Chris Haley: 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.
21:14
Chris Haley: So that was that was my reality for a while.
21:19
Chris Haley: 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.
21:31
Crista Cowan: Okay.
21:32
Chris Haley: And then I also would do industrial films, industrial films, which would be if you're talking about so like UPS.
21:43
Crista Cowan: Training videos or yeah, exactly.
21:45
Chris Haley: 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.
21:58
Chris Haley: And and that would be what But also pay the bills are those industrial films.
22:03
Chris Haley: And sometimes I would get a commercial here and there.
22:05
Chris Haley: But but that was the idea was that moving to Connecticut had me closer to the audition back and forth to New York.
22:13
Chris Haley: So once I was in Bridgeport, Connecticut, then I was even more so auditioning back and forth to New York.
22:18
Chris Haley: And full time, I became a singing, a costume singing telegram person.
22:24
Chris Haley: Literally, and I still have the red jacket today, which God knows I hope it doesn't still fit me.
22:30
Chris Haley: But but but yeah, and I was a gorilla, I was a green MM, I was a bumblebee.
22:38
Chris Haley: But the biggest thing I was was a top banana who was called Bambino.
22:44
Crista Cowan: Okay.
22:44
Chris Haley: That that was I was a top banana in let's say southern Connecticut or Southern or Central Banana.
22:50
Chris Haley: I was the one you would get, Crista, for your birthday.
22:52
Chris Haley: 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.
22:59
Chris Haley: And I'd give you some balloons and maybe a little box of candy, and then I'd be off.
23:06
Crista Cowan: So your little boy heart had these dreams of having people applaud.
23:10
Crista Cowan: I don't imagine people applauding after your singing telegram was what you had in mind.
23:16
Crista Cowan: Right?
23:17
Chris Haley: Exactly.
23:19
Crista Cowan: So was your was your soul being fed by the work you were doing, or were you just still hustling?
23:24
Crista Cowan: Or was my soul being sucked out dry?
23:27
Crista Cowan: No.
23:29
Chris Haley: 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.
23:37
Chris Haley: 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.
23:46
Crista Cowan: 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?
23:56
Crista Cowan: Like what did that journey look like?
23:58
Chris Haley: 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.
24:18
Chris Haley: But it's a full-time job.
24:21
Crista Cowan: And at this point, you've been hustling for what?
24:23
Crista Cowan: Like in this case?
24:24
Chris Haley: Yeah.
24:24
Chris Haley: Exactly.
24:25
Chris Haley: And and the and quite frankly, the balloon job was dying out.
24:30
Chris Haley: So it really was like you either need to move back home or you need to move to California.
24:38
Chris Haley: Because the other thing was, and sometimes I do kick myself about this too, quite frankly, is that my mother passed away in 1988.
24:46
Chris Haley: And so it was an accident with a cab, a taxi cab.
24:50
Chris Haley: So there was a license or a settlement.
24:53
Chris Haley: Boy, talk about genealogy, family history.
24:55
Chris Haley: Here we go.
24:55
Chris Haley: 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.
25:14
Crista Cowan: What a what a gift to have a father that believes in you that much.
25:18
Crista Cowan: Oh my God.
25:19
Chris Haley: Oh my God.
25:19
Chris Haley: But who am I, Trista?
25:21
Chris Haley: I am that guy who did not want to put the burden on them to go to an expensive college.
25:28
Chris Haley: And so what do I say?
25:30
Chris Haley: No, Dad.
25:31
Chris Haley: Thank you, but no, I I I'm gonna make it on my own.
25:34
Chris Haley: And so I mean, so many different times.
25:37
Chris Haley: It was like, who are you?
25:39
Chris Haley: Did you really want this?
25:40
Chris Haley: When opportunity knocks, you have to take it.
25:43
Chris Haley: And I'm like, no, no, that's too much.
25:49
Chris Haley: 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.
26:04
Chris Haley: And and and maybe it's it's not gonna happen.
26:07
Chris Haley: And that and I feel so awful that I made you do that.
26:10
Chris Haley: So Universal Studios happened.
26:13
Chris Haley: I take that job, I go there, and I work full-time as an actor on the lot and did that for three years.
26:20
Chris Haley: And and I really I liked being there.
26:25
Chris Haley: I liked having my own life.
26:26
Chris Haley: I liked Orlando.
26:27
Chris Haley: It was hot, but I liked.
26:29
Chris Haley: While I was there, Queen happened.
26:34
Chris Haley: And Queen happened around the same time that Uncle Alex passed away.
26:40
Crista Cowan: Uh-huh.
26:41
Chris Haley: He was also 92, February 92.
26:45
Chris Haley: Okay.
26:46
Chris Haley: When he passed away, people had never stopped saying, Well, you already know your family history, you already know who you are.
26:52
Chris Haley: And I would say, well, no, my mother has something to do with that.
26:54
Chris Haley: Roots and Queen were on my father's side.
26:58
Chris Haley: And that's what made me start thinking, maybe I should start doing genealogy myself to honor my mother.
27:03
Chris Haley: Literally, that's what to honor my mother.
27:06
Chris Haley: I should look into that side of my family as well.
27:10
Chris Haley: So I needed to search out possibilities or opportunities where I can learn how to be a certifiable genealogist.
27:22
Chris Haley: That means a lot of things.
27:23
Chris Haley: Yeah, that's but but but but but somebody who really knew what history was and what a primary source document is.
27:30
Crista Cowan: 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.
27:45
Crista Cowan: And that's kind of like most people just kind of accept that now.
27:48
Crista Cowan: 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?
27:58
Chris Haley: Oh, yeah.
27:59
Chris Haley: 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.
28:12
Chris Haley: 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.
28:26
Chris Haley: It because that's what they do with the Haley now.
28:29
Chris Haley: 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.
28:40
Chris Haley: And and do I really want to go down that path?
28:43
Chris Haley: Even though it may have an entree, it'll also have the flip side that it's not so pleasant when people are quit.
28:51
Chris Haley: Acting in and of itself is a subjective art.
28:54
Chris Haley: People can love Lawrence Olivier, they can love Denzel Washington, they can think, oh, they're just over the top.
29:00
Chris Haley: Oh my gosh, that's too much.
29:02
Chris Haley: And in history, I have found that history has almost as many people who scrutinize your findings as people will scrutinize your acting choices.
29:17
Chris Haley: I I truly have found that in these two fields, which is maybe some reason why I've been attacking to both of them.
29:23
Chris Haley: There's that interactiveness that's a part of it.
29:27
Chris Haley: So that made it very, very scary actually to go down.
29:34
Chris Haley: But I love it.
29:35
Chris Haley: 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.
29:58
Chris Haley: I I think that's such a great, a great and an admirable thing that I wish my uncle had.
30:04
Chris Haley: 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.
30:19
Chris Haley: And I do think he felt that.
30:21
Chris Haley: 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.
30:34
Chris Haley: 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.
30:47
Chris Haley: And I'm thinking, I don't know you.
30:49
Chris Haley: Do I owe you a five dollars?
30:50
Chris Haley: What did I do?
30:52
Chris Haley: And it's it's just crazy.
30:55
Chris Haley: 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.
31:23
Chris Haley: And and Uncle Alex has I think it's seven statues or something.
31:26
Chris Haley: I've only really seen two, but statues dedicated memorials of his likeness.
31:33
Chris Haley: 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.
31:42
Crista Cowan: 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?
31:53
Chris Haley: There are so many stories in there which which I think are not only fascinating, encouraging, but dramatic, uh inspirational, heartbreaking.
32:06
Chris Haley: I mean, it's it really is elements of almost one would think it is written for television.
32:15
Chris Haley: And maybe everybody feels like they have that.
32:17
Chris Haley: 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.
32:47
Chris Haley: It's it's there are going to be divorces, there are going to be alcoholics, there are going to be alleged murders.
32:54
Chris Haley: And yes, I am talking about my my family.
32:57
Chris Haley: I mean, there are going to be those things.
33:00
Chris Haley: 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?
33:10
Chris Haley: And should I write about it?
33:13
Chris Haley: Because that's that was part of what I want to write it for me.
33:16
Chris Haley: I want to write it because I think it's worth sharing.
33:20
Chris Haley: I think it's worth putting forth.
33:22
Chris Haley: So I'll give you one example because I because I mean that was the the point of it.
33:27
Chris Haley: 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.
33:59
Chris Haley: So my great-grandmother's eternal great-grandmother, who as I said before, it was named Kuda Kuda Mama.
34:04
Chris Haley: Her real name was Ida Allen.
34:06
Chris Haley: My or or Ida Hankerson.
34:10
Chris Haley: 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.
34:28
Chris Haley: 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.
34:44
Chris Haley: There was also a daughter named Bertha.
34:46
Chris Haley: So those were the two children that they had.
34:49
Chris Haley: Later in life, there was a third half-sister called Lizzie, who we called Aunt Frizzly growing up.
35:00
Chris Haley: And I don't know why.
35:02
Chris Haley: I guess because she had dark hair.
35:04
Chris Haley: Aunt Frizzly was very dark-skinned.
35:07
Chris Haley: My great-grandmother was very light-skinned.
35:09
Chris Haley: 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.
35:22
Chris Haley: So again, 20, 30 years ago, how do you find people?
35:29
Chris Haley: You pick up the yellow pages and you start ringing, dinging, dinging, dinging ding.
35:34
Chris Haley: No cell phone, no this, no that.
35:37
Chris Haley: Again, my mother had passed away, and I started calling Fultures in the phone book in Richmond County, Georgia.
35:46
Chris Haley: One of the persons who did answer the phone.
35:50
Chris Haley: 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.
36:00
Chris Haley: And I was worried because I thought, how will this come across?
36:02
Chris Haley: 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.
36:16
Chris Haley: And so, is this something that somebody wants to hear about at all, wants to talk about at all?
36:20
Chris Haley: And I said, I believe that my great-great-grandmother may have worked for your family.
36:28
Chris Haley: And that's how I broached it.
36:30
Chris Haley: And and I don't know if she says that, well, well, what was she like?
36:32
Chris Haley: I said, Well, her name was Lizzie Hankerson, and she had two daughters, one was named Ida, and one was named Bertha.
36:40
Chris Haley: And she said, Oh, you're talking about Uncle Charlie's kids.
36:43
Chris Haley: She literally said that.
36:44
Chris Haley: Because my my great-grandfather grandfather's name was Charles Fulcher.
36:49
Chris Haley: 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.
37:04
Chris Haley: And she had started doing the family history.
37:07
Chris Haley: So she had found this out.
37:09
Chris Haley: And she knew.
37:11
Crista Cowan: And she knew.
37:12
Chris Haley: 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.
37:26
Chris Haley: It just sometimes it happens.
37:28
Chris Haley: Don't think it's gonna happen all the time, don't think it's always gonna be pleasant, but it didn't happen.
37:34
Chris Haley: And and and because of that, I ended up meeting her.
37:38
Chris Haley: We had breakfast at a Waffle House in Georgia.
37:42
Chris Haley: She shared with me a photograph, a copy of John W.
37:46
Chris Haley: Fulcher, who is my great-great-great-grandfather, who was a colonel in the Civil War on the Confederate side.
37:54
Chris Haley: Wow.
37:55
Chris Haley: 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.
38:05
Chris Haley: 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.
38:16
Chris Haley: Both of these men are a part of my life, yeah, are a part of my genealogy.
38:20
Chris Haley: 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.
39:01
Chris Haley: 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.
39:20
Chris Haley: 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.
39:28
Chris Haley: So my father, my brother, and I wouldn't talk about it.
39:31
Chris Haley: It was like that that portion of our family was literally cut off.
39:37
Chris Haley: 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.
39:57
Chris Haley: If at the same time I say, Oh, I'm not gonna do that though.
40:00
Chris Haley: I because yes, right, right.
40:02
Chris Haley: I'm I'm not gonna go down that path because it might be uncomfortable, it might be it might be awkward.
40:09
Chris Haley: And and I would say, I mean, realistically, even having thought that that would not be that would be disingenuous or hypocritical of me.
40:18
Chris Haley: 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?
40:24
Chris Haley: He did not discourage me, he understood it.
40:26
Chris Haley: 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.
40:33
Chris Haley: I don't think he said, because some because he was all on board when the connection was made.
40:39
Chris Haley: And how did that connection be was made?
40:42
Chris Haley: Again, I go back to the phone book.
40:45
Chris Haley: 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.
40:57
Chris Haley: And this was the last address or whatever phone number that I had.
41:00
Chris Haley: So I started calling.
41:02
Chris Haley: I started calling.
41:03
Chris Haley: I think I called three rights.
41:04
Chris Haley: I got you one right, and I was saying, this is Hattie.
41:07
Chris Haley: I'm calling for Hattie Wright.
41:08
Chris Haley: And before it said that, before that that Hattie Wright was broached, the person said Taco Bell.
41:15
Chris Haley: And I said, What?
41:16
Chris Haley: I said, Yeah, Taco Bell.
41:19
Chris Haley: I said, I'm I'm sorry.
41:20
Chris Haley: I is this a number?
41:21
Chris Haley: And I spent the number out and said, Yes, Taco Bell.
41:23
Chris Haley: I said, Okay, well, I must have the wrong number.
41:25
Chris Haley: So I hung up, checked the number, and I dialed back.
41:29
Chris Haley: Hi, Taco Bell.
41:32
Crista Cowan: Really?
41:33
Chris Haley: So that was the second time.
41:34
Chris Haley: 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.
41:42
Chris Haley: 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.
41:53
Chris Haley: My great-grandmother would be a hundred years old.
41:56
Chris Haley: 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.
42:18
Chris Haley: 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.
42:27
Chris Haley: I thought, this is really crazy.
42:29
Chris Haley: And then I think I finally said, Well, this is what I'm doing.
42:33
Chris Haley: And I'm trying to reach uh Hattie Wright.
42:35
Chris Haley: I'm her great great grandson.
42:36
Chris Haley: He said, Okay, hold on a minute.
42:37
Chris Haley: And that no, that's what I thought.
42:39
Chris Haley: Oh my god, she's working there.
42:42
Chris Haley: When they said, Oh my God, hold hold for a moment.
42:45
Chris Haley: And then it turned out my Aunt Edna, who was her daughter, my grandfather's sister, it was their house.
42:52
Chris Haley: And the grandkids lived at the house, and they were just playing.
42:57
Chris Haley: 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.
43:04
Chris Haley: That is amazing.
43:05
Chris Haley: It was amazing.
43:07
Chris Haley: And so we ended up knowing each other for five years.
43:09
Chris Haley: She lived to be 105 years old.
43:12
Crista Cowan: What?
43:12
Crista Cowan: That is old school family history right there.
43:16
Crista Cowan: Old school family history.
43:17
Crista Cowan: Oh my gosh.
43:18
Crista Cowan: It's just it's just amazing.
43:19
Crista Cowan: Yeah.
43:20
Crista Cowan: That is so cool.
43:21
Crista Cowan: Well, so um, so you came into family history because of your own curiosity about your mother's side of the family.
43:27
Crista Cowan: You felt empowered to do that.
43:29
Crista Cowan: You it sounds like you've made some incredible discoveries.
43:33
Crista Cowan: Um, how did you like how did you end up with the Maryland State Archives?
43:39
Chris Haley: Because when I was making this not a switch, but the adding on to my passion looking into genealogy because of my mother.
43:51
Chris Haley: Because at the same time, I did want to move to California.
43:55
Chris Haley: I I really did.
43:56
Chris Haley: And the plan was be around the end.
43:59
Chris Haley: 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.
44:11
Chris Haley: But again, who am I?
44:12
Chris Haley: No, I can't take that from you.
44:16
Chris Haley: So um, I wanted to know how to do this, quote unquote, the right way.
44:24
Chris Haley: And my father said, Well, I know someone who helped your fat your uncle do his research.
44:29
Chris Haley: Her name is Phoebe Jacobson, and she is in Annapolis, Maryland, at the Maryland State Archives.
44:35
Chris Haley: And maybe she can give you some advice.
44:38
Chris Haley: So I ended up calling her.
44:40
Chris Haley: I ended up talking also with someone named Jimmy Walker, not a good task fame.
44:45
Crista Cowan: No, I know who Jimmy Walker is.
44:47
Chris Haley: Yeah, Jimmy Walker, who was very kind and generous and spoke to me for a while.
44:52
Chris Haley: 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.
45:09
Chris Haley: But he talked to me for a little bit and gave me advice.
45:13
Chris Haley: And then I talked to Phoebe.
45:15
Chris Haley: 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.
45:31
Chris Haley: Laws define a culture.
45:32
Chris Haley: 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.
45:41
Chris Haley: So that stick was sticks with me to this day.
45:45
Chris Haley: And talk to me about genealogy as far as the vital records that yet you look through.
45:52
Chris Haley: 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.
45:59
Chris Haley: 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.
46:08
Chris Haley: That was it, that was the plan then.
46:11
Chris Haley: So, where was I gonna earn money?
46:13
Chris Haley: 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.
46:26
Chris Haley: The other two weren't hiring the Maryland State Archives was.
46:30
Chris Haley: And I ended up talking to the state archivist then, Edward C.
46:33
Chris Haley: Papercruz, after whom the building is now named.
46:36
Chris Haley: 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.
46:53
Chris Haley: And so that's what started me on that that path to got me connected to the Maryland State Archives.
46:59
Chris Haley: 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.
47:27
Chris Haley: And then around that time of 2001, there was a task force to study the legacy of slavery in Maryland.
47:35
Chris Haley: It's a longer title, but that's shortened it down.
47:37
Chris Haley: At that point, I was the deputy or associate director of reference services in charge of the volunteer program at the Maryland State Archives.
47:47
Chris Haley: 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.
48:11
Chris Haley: And I thought this might have something to do with the Underground Railroad.
48:15
Chris Haley: Because it's not going to say that, but Jerry, I'd like you to keep following up on this.
48:21
Chris Haley: And I engaged two other volunteers to do this with him.
48:26
Chris Haley: And so those three persons were the first ones who began actively pursuing what became known then as the Underground Railroad Project.
48:35
Chris Haley: 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.
48:49
Chris Haley: 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.
49:06
Chris Haley: It was about those persons who perhaps of their own volition escaped, so assisted flight.
49:13
Chris Haley: In 2005, I took over being director of that program officially at that point.
49:21
Chris Haley: And then it became the legacy of slavery and Maryland program, which is what it is today, 25 years later.
49:28
Chris Haley: And I've had over a hundred some people who've worked on it, and we've won so many.
49:32
Chris Haley: We're a designated site for research for the National Park Service Network to Freedom.
49:37
Chris Haley: We've been involved with the the Harriet Tubman Center, which was created after about 10 years too, and Dwarf Rochester County.
49:48
Chris Haley: It's just so much.
49:49
Chris Haley: And I'm really very proud of it.
49:51
Crista Cowan: You should be proud of it, Chris.
49:53
Crista Cowan: Oh my goodness.
49:54
Crista Cowan: I'm thinking, like, I came into this conversation, I think, with an expectation of celebrating Roots, and I yeah, and we should.
50:01
Crista Cowan: 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?
50:15
Crista Cowan: Prior to that, it had been the realm of nobility and the realm of the upper class, but now it became accessible to everyone.
50:23
Crista Cowan: And the fact that you found yourself then at a switch point in your life where you picked up that baton.
50:29
Crista Cowan: He created a movement, but you have created a legacy with this project.
50:34
Crista Cowan: And I think that that is so beautiful.
50:36
Crista Cowan: And I was not expecting to hear that story.
50:39
Crista Cowan: So thank you for sharing that.
50:40
Crista Cowan: But more importantly, thank you for the work that you have done.
50:43
Crista Cowan: That is that is incredible.
50:45
Crista Cowan: That is so amazing.
50:46
Crista Cowan: Thank you for sharing that.
50:47
Crista Cowan: Well, so I'd love um just to kind of round this out, you have um been working with um Roots 50 Tour.
50:55
Crista Cowan: Tell us about that and and what that's all about.
50:58
Chris Haley: Yeah, that is scheduled for August 7th, 8th, and 9th.
51:02
Chris Haley: And I mean, it anyone could be a part of it.
51:05
Chris Haley: 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.
51:15
Chris Haley: Wow, focused on an African American family.
51:18
Chris Haley: 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.
51:37
Chris Haley: 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.
51:58
Chris Haley: 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.
52:09
Chris Haley: 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.
52:20
Chris Haley: 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.
52:38
Chris Haley: It isn't the 50th anniversary of woe is me, woe are black people, and slavery.
52:45
Chris Haley: 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.
53:22
Chris Haley: 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.
53:32
Chris Haley: 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.
53:43
Crista Cowan: I love that that concept of of marking time, right?
53:47
Crista Cowan: And having events of celebration to do that.
53:50
Crista Cowan: 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.
53:57
Crista Cowan: Thank you.
53:58
Crista Cowan: This is this is great, Crista.
53:59
Chris Haley: Really good bravo for all your work and and inspiration and what you put put out there.
54:04
Chris Haley: It's just really, really inspiring.
54:08
Chris Haley: It just is.
54:09
Crista Cowan: Well, thank you so much.
54:10
Crista Cowan: 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.
54:18
Crista Cowan: Oh, I love improv.
54:19
Crista Cowan: I figured you might.
54:21
Crista Cowan: It's called One Word, One Story.
54:24
Crista Cowan: 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.
54:38
Crista Cowan: So today's word, today's word or phrase in this case is road trip.
54:43
Chris Haley: Okay.
54:44
Chris Haley: Now this, oh gosh, oh my gosh.
54:47
Chris Haley: Now we're putting it.
54:48
Chris Haley: See, now wasn't really a road trip.
54:51
Chris Haley: I don't know.
54:52
Chris Haley: See, that's I've written seven poetry collections.
54:56
Chris Haley: 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.
55:09
Chris Haley: And again, very, very young kid.
55:11
Chris Haley: 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.
55:23
Chris Haley: So road trip, and this poem I wrote is called I Remember the Billboard.
55:32
Chris Haley: 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.
55:42
Chris Haley: Dark holes shielded his eyes as we crossed state lines.
55:47
Chris Haley: Painted words shouted, You're now entering clan country.
55:52
Chris Haley: In the back seat, I muffled a cry.
55:56
Chris Haley: Though to some you are a welcome, to a transfixed child, you are a horrid sight.
56:02
Chris Haley: I'm sure several cheered your message.
56:05
Chris Haley: It was this black boy you met at your fright.
56:08
Chris Haley: I know I might never know when you were built.
56:13
Chris Haley: I vaguely recall where you stood.
56:16
Chris Haley: But I'll remember until the day I die, the billboard of the man with a hood.
56:23
Chris Haley: And then this is that illustration that my brother drew for me for the book.
56:28
Crista Cowan: That's really powerful.
56:31
Chris Haley: You can thank you.
56:31
Chris Haley: You can actually, because it was so long ago.
56:35
Chris Haley: Of course it was so long ago.
56:37
Chris Haley: I I don't know if it's like that for you.
56:40
Chris Haley: I imagine it is for all of us.
56:41
Chris Haley: You start doubting, is this really what happened?
56:44
Chris Haley: Is this really what I saw?
56:46
Chris Haley: 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.
57:00
Chris Haley: And I and I do remember that.
57:02
Crista Cowan: 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.
57:16
Crista Cowan: And they sometimes mean something entirely different than they meant at the time.
57:21
Crista Cowan: Um, so I'll share my my road trip uh thing that came to mind is a little bit more lighthearted.
57:27
Crista Cowan: 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.
57:43
Crista Cowan: And um, and they were engaged 15 days after they got home from that trip.
57:49
Crista Cowan: Oh my gosh.
57:50
Crista Cowan: And they are still married 55 years later.
57:53
Crista Cowan: 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.
58:05
Crista Cowan: Oh my gosh, that's awesome.
58:07
Crista Cowan: I have road tripped with every man I have seriously dated, and that maybe why I am still single.
58:14
Crista Cowan: That's too funny.
58:16
Crista Cowan: That is too funny.
58:18
Crista Cowan: I love that.
58:19
Crista Cowan: So there's there's my road trip.
58:22
Crista Cowan: What story came to mind when you heard today's word?
58:25
Crista Cowan: Tell me in the comments.
58:26
Chris Haley: Now you know that it's a sitcom.
58:28
Chris Haley: 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.
58:37
Crista Cowan: Well, maybe we'll have to start another show.
58:40
Chris Haley: Yes, exactly.
58:41
Chris Haley: That's perfect.
58:42
Chris Haley: Oh my gosh.
58:44
Crista Cowan: Well, and and maybe and maybe maybe there would be a role in it for you after all, Chris.
58:49
Chris Haley: I I will love that.
58:50
Chris Haley: I would have that would that would make my heart hit or patch.
58:54
Crista Cowan: Well, thank you.
58:54
Crista Cowan: 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.
59:12
Chris Haley: Studio sponsored by Ancestry.