Alex Haley
Alex Murray Palmer Haley was born in Ithaca, New York when his parents were students: his father Simon Haley was obtaining a master's degree in agriculture at Cornell and his mother Bertha Palmer was studying at the Ithaca Conservatory of Music. After Haley's birth, his mother returned to her childhood home of Henning, Tennessee and raised him with the help of her parents Will and Cynthia. Simon and Bertha had two more sons, George and Julius; after the latter's birth in 1929 the family moved...