Alex Haley, author of Roots, speaks at Macalester College in St. Paul about his experience in a foreign crowd.
Haley talks about a reaction he had when he was in a crowd where everyone was Black, saying it hit him like a thunderbolt. He had an uneasy, insecure and awkward feeling, looked at his hand and compared to other hands. He felt a great feeling of guilt and being impure among the pure. His interpreter said he was being stared at because they'd never seen a Black American, and its enormous symbolism.