Alexander Murray Palmer Haley was born in Ithaca, New York on August 11, 1921. The oldest of three sons (George and Julius Haley), Haley was born to Simon and Bertha (Palmer) Haley. He grew up in the South in an African-American family also mixed with Irish and Cherokee ancestry. Haley’s father, Simon, was a professor of agriculture who had also served in World War I. Haley always spoke proudly of his father and the incredible obstacles of racism he had overcome.

At the age of fifteen, Alex graduated from high school. He attended Elizabeth City Teachers College for two years and on May 24, 1939, he began his twenty-year service with the Coast Guard. He enlisted as a seaman and then became a third class petty officer in the rate of mess attendant, one of the few enlisted designators open to African-Americans at that time. It was during his service in the Pacific Theater of Operations that Haley taught himself the craft of writing stories.

After World War II, Haley was able to petition the Coast Guard to allow him to transfer into the field of journalism. By 1949, he had become a first class petty officer in the rate of chief journalist. He then rose to chief petty officer until his retirement from the Coast Guard in 1959. Alex Haley was the first and only person to receive an honorary degree from the Coast Guard Academy, presented by President George H. W. Bush, and he had the singular honor of having a Coast Guard Cutter named after him. Alex Haley’s numerous awards and decorations from the Coast Guard include the American Defense Service Medal, World War II Victory Medal, and the National Defense Service Medal.

In 1941 Haley married Nannie Branch. The marriage ended in divorce in 1964, and in the same year Haley married Juliette Collins. They divorced in 1972. His third wife was the former Myra Lewis of Los Angeles.

After his retirement from the Coast Guard, Haley began his writing career and eventually became a senior editor for Reader’s Digest. Throughout the 1960s, Haley was responsible for some of Reader’s Digest’s most notable interviews, including an interview with American Nazi Party leader George Lincoln Rockwell. Haley conducted the first Playboy Interview for Playboy magazine. Following this, Alex conducted a series of interviews with jazz legend Miles Davis, the first of which appeared in the September 1962 issue. His interviews with Malcolm X lead to his first book, The Autobiography of Malcolm X: As Told to Alex Haley (1965). Selling more than six million copies by 1977 in the United States and other countries, it was translated into eight languages. This literary work accorded Haley true fame as an author and was later named by Time magazine one of the ten most important nonfiction books of the twentieth century.