In October 1960, Alex attends his great-aunt Liz's funeral but he and his father Simon still don't get along. Alex is now making a decent living as a writer, mainly for magazines, but his father is still disappointed in him. He interviews Malcolm X for an article he's writing for "Reader's Digest" on the Nation of Islam which leads to an article in Playboy about the black leader. "Playboy" then arranges an interview with George Lincoln Rockwell, the leader of the American Nazi Party. His successful articles lead to his first book, "The Autobiography of Malcolm X", completed only a short time before Malcolm X's assassination in 1965. He begins to research his own family history, attempting to locate written records that would substantiate the oral history he's heard from his childhood. After much searching, he believes he's found Kunta Kinte's original village in what is now Gambia.
—garykmcd