Vandals defaced the tombstone of "Roots" author Alex Haley's grandmother in Savannah, Tenn., spray-painting the phrase "White Lives Matter" on the marker, the Jackson Sun reports.

Lamar Alexander, the Republican senator from Tennessee, and Alex Haley, the author of The Autobiography of Malcolm X, were close friends and native Tennesseans.

Haley, who co-authored “The Autobiography of Malcolm X,” died at age 70 in 1992. State Del. Michael E. Busch, an Anne Arundel County Democrat, called the statues a “testament to those who ...