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Haley recalls working 16-hour days for about $2,000 a year, surviving on nothing but canned sardines for weeks at a time.

Although he published many articles during these years, the pay was barely enough to make ends meet. Upon retiring from the Coast Guard in 1959, Haley set out to make it as a freelance writer.

Haley also had a Coast Guard Cutter named in his honor, the USCGC Alex Haley. A highly decorated veteran, Haley has received the American Defense Service Medal, World War II Victory Medal, National Defense Service Medal and an honorary degree from the Coast Guard Academy. Haley was soon promoted to chief journalist of the Coast Guard, a rank he held until his retirement in 1959, after 20 years of service. Alex Haley was always remarkably proud of his father, whom he said had overcome the immense obstacles of racism to achieve high levels of success and provide better opportunities for his children.Īt the conclusion of World War II, the Coast Guard permitted Haley to transfer into the field of journalism, and by 1949 he had achieved the rank of first class petty officer in the rate of journalist. When Simon Haley completed his degree, he joined the family in Tennessee and taught as a professor of agriculture at various southern universities. For the first five years of his life, Haley lived with his mother and grandparents in Henning, Tennessee, while his father finished his studies. At the time of his birth, Haley’s father, Simon Haley, a World War I veteran, was a graduate student in agriculture at Cornell University, and his mother, Bertha Palmer Haley, was a teacher. Alex Haley was born Alexander Murray Palmer Haley on August 11, 1921, in Ithaca, New York.