Born in 1921 in Ithaca, New York, Alexander Murray Palmer Haley was the eldest of three sons born to Bertha George Palmer and Simon Alexander Haley. Both his parents were in their first year of graduate school when Haley was born. His mother was studying at the Ithaca Conservatory of Music and his father at Cornell University. Both went on to become teachers, Bertha at the local elementary school and Simon at black colleges in the South. When Alex was a boy the family moved to Henning, Tennessee, where Alex grew up under the influence of his grandmother and aunts Viney, Mathilda, and Liz, who recounted stories about his African ancestor, Kunta Kinte. They planted in his imagination the seeds that would grow into in the novel Roots. Haley spent twelve years tracing his African family members to the Mandinka tribe in a tiny village in Juffure of the Gambia region of West Africa.
Uneventful School Days Lead to Service
As a boy, Haley was not an enthusiastic student. When he finished high school at age fifteen, he did so with a C average. Three years later, Haley joined the U.S. Coast Guard and began a twenty-year career in the service.
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