Loyle Hairston (1926-2008), an African American writer, was born in Macon, Mississippi, where he spent the first 14 years of his life. Hairston joined the Navy at 16 and served in WWII. Upon his release from the Navy, he attended New York University, with the aid of the G.I. Bill, where he studied creative writing. Hairston was one of the founders of the Harlem Writers Guild, a workshop that promoted and influenced Black writing, and a participating editor in Freedmoways, and Mississippi Writers Anthologies. Along with contributing to newspapers and journal articles, Hairston also wrote fiction. "The Winds of Change" was his first short story, which was published in the American Negro Short Stories (1966). He was a member of the NAACP, SCLC, CORE, and Malcolm X's Nationalist Forum.