Alex Haley
(1921–1992)

Born in Ithaca, New York, Alex Haley spent much of his childhood in Henning, Tennessee. His mother moved him there when he was just six weeks old to live with her parents. Haley's debut book, The Autobiography of Malcom X (1965)—about a controversial leader of the Nation of Islam group—launched his writing career. In 1976, he published his most famous work, Roots: The Saga of an American Family. Haley's grandmother used to tell him stories about his ancestors. He decided to learn about his heritage and traced his family's history back seven generations to Africa. Haley later based his most famous book, Roots, and other books on what he learned in his research. Within two years of first publication, Haley had won 271 awards, including special citations from the judges of the 1977 National Book Awards and the 1977 Pulitzer Prizes. The story was adapted into a television miniseries and drew in approximately 130 million viewers. He once said that while his most famous writing was about his family, writing about families is like writing about "every person on earth—we all have a family."

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