From "About the Author" in the Scholastic version:

MILDRED D. TAYLOR was born in Jackson, Mississippi, and grew up in Toledo, Ohio.  After graduating from the University of Toledo, she spent two years in Ethiopia with the Peace Corps.  Returning to the United States, she recruited for the Peace Corps before entering the School of journalism at the University of Colorado.  As a member of the Black Student Alliance, she worked with students and university officials in structuring a Black Studies program at the university.  Her first book about the Logan family, Song of the Trees, won the Council on Interracial Books Award in the African American category.  It was also a New York Times Outstanding Book of the Year in 1975.