Mildred Taylor was born on september 13 1943 to Wilbert Lee and Deletha Marie Taylor. She was born in a segregated city in a segregated state in segregated America. 3 weeks after her birth Mildred and her family moved to Ohio and she remained there until she graduated university in 1965. She loved writing as a child and took her inspiration from Charles Dickens and Jane Austen. She studied black culture, black history and black politics. She was approached by life magazine to write an article however due to her strange type of writing it was never published. In August 1972, she married Errol Zea-Daly. The two divorced in 1975 and have one daughter. She wrote and published her first book ‘Song of the trees in 1975’ and has been writing ever since.