Kunta Kinte - Alex Haley Memorial, Annapolis (must see)

The Kunta Kinte – Alex Haley Memorial honors African heritage and the story shared in Roots by Alex Haley. It marks the harbor where the slave ship Lord Ligonier arrived on September 29, 1767, carrying captives from the Gambia River region, including Kunta Kinte. The memorial, developed in stages beginning with a plaque in 1981, identifies the arrival place of an enslaved African by name.

The central sculpture group was dedicated in 1999. It shows Alex Haley seated and reading from a book to three children of different backgrounds. The scene represents the passing of history through storytelling and memory. Around the plaza stands a curved “Story Wall” made of ten bronze plaques. These panels present quotations from Roots and describe the journey from West Africa to North America, helping visitors follow the narrative connected with Kunta Kinte’s capture, transport, and later generations.

Across the nearby plaza is a large compass rose about 14 feet (4.3 meters) in diameter, installed during the final phase of the memorial in 2002. The design is aligned with true north and places the harbor at its center. Its directional markers point toward regions across the Atlantic Ocean that were linked by the slave trade, encouraging visitors to face the direction of ancestral homelands.

The memorial was completed on June 12, 2002, when the Story Wall and compass rose were added. While the site honors the legacy of Roots, Alex Haley described the book as a mixture of historical research and family oral tradition. Today the memorial serves as a place where visitors can read the plaques, reflect on the history of the transatlantic slave trade, and consider the stories that connect past generations with the present.