Mildred D. Taylor

(1943 -          )

            Mildred D. Taylor was born in Jackson , Mississippi on September 13, 1943. When she was three months old, she moved with her family to small new Ohio town called Toledo . When she went to school she was the only black girl in her class. Growing up she went to Mississippi and she grew too know the area through many old stories told by some of her family members. She attended the University of Toledo . After she graduated, she joined the peace corp. She worked as an English and History teacher for two years in Ethiopia .

  After coming back from Africa she decided to attend the University of Colorado school of Journalism . Her father helped influence her by telling her a bunch of stories about growing up in the south. That gave her many ideas for the novels she has written. Such as Song Of The Trees and Roll Of Thunder, Hear My Cry. She later moved to Los Angles and worked during the day and wrote at night.

           She says, “As a small, I loved the South.” That is why she has written her stories based inn the southern part of the United States . All of her ideas came from something she had heard or done at one of her family gatherings in Mississippi . She was working in many temporary jobs and once she was offered a job at CBS. She refused the job because of her new desire for writing. In August 1972, she married Errol Zea-Daly. She had a little girl, but later in 1975 they divorced.

           Mildred had won many different awards for the novels she had written. Her books have been named Outstanding Book of the Year by the New York Times. She won the Coretta Scott King Award for three of her books. In 1977, she won a Newbery Medal for Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry and she also won an ALAN award in 1997. She is very proud of her books, because they provide historical fiction about the lives of African Americans. She is now living by herself in Colorado .

- by Proof

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