In the late 1960’s, Harry Courlander—a white man—composed
The African, a fictional work about a young African boy who is captured, made to endure the horrors of the mid-Atlantic passage, and eventually sold into slavery in America. In 1978 he sued Haley for plagiarism. Upon expressing regret that at least 81 passages were lifted virtually verbatim from Courlander’s novel and recast in
Roots, and upon the Judge’s unambiguous finding that Haley was guilty of plagiarism, Haley agreed to an out of court settlement whereby he would pay Courlander $650,000 (roughly 2 million dollars in today’s terms).
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