Mildred DeLois Taylor (born September 13, 1943) is an African-American writer known for her works exploring the struggle faced by African-American families in the Deep South. Taylor was born in Jackson, Mississippi but lived there only a short amount of time, then moved to Toledo, Ohio, where she spent most of her childhood. She now lives in Colorado with her daughter. She has expressed her views on the Great Depression as an economical crisis, as well as slavery. Many of her works are based on stories of her family that she heard while growing up. She has stated that these anecdotes became very clear in her mind, and in fact, once she realized that adults talked about the past, "I began to visualize all the family who had once known the