Alexander Murray Palmer Haley is the author of the book, "The Roots." He was born in Ithaca, New York on August 11, 1921. He was the oldest of three brothers and a sister. His father was a professor of agriculture at Alabama University. His mother was Bertha George Haley. The family had African American, Mandinka, Cherokee, Scottish and Scottish-Irish roots. Alex was always very proud of his father and the racism he had overcome. Alex went to college in Mississippi, and then a year later he went to North Carolina.
He enlisted in the military, and he began a twenty-year career as a United States coast guard. It was during his service in the Pacific Theater of operations that Haley started writing stories. During his enlistment, other sailors would pay him to write love letters to their girlfriends. In 1976, Haley published Roots: The saga of an American family, which was a novel based on his family's history. Roots was eventually released in thirty-seven languages. He won the Pulitzer Prize for his writings.