Bill Clinton biography

Synopsis

Early Life

William Jefferson Clinton, better known as Bill Clinton, was born on August 19, 1946 in Hope, Arkansas, a small town with a population of about 8,000. His father, William Jefferson Blythe, died in a car crash several months before Clinton was born, leaving him in the care of his mother, Virginia Cassidy Blythe. To provide for her son, Virginia moved to New Orleans, Louisiana to complete two years of nursing school, while Clinton stayed with his grandparents, Eldridge and Edith Cassidy. Clinton's grandparents were strict disciplinarians, who instilled in him the importance of a good education. "My grandparents had a lot to do with my early commitment to learning," Clinton later recalled. "They taught me to count and read. I was reading little books when I was 3."

Clinton's mother returned to Arkansas with a degree in nursing in 1950, and later that year she married an automobile salesman named Roger Clinton. Two years later, the family moved from Hope to Hot Springs, Arkansas. Although neither his parents nor his grandparents were religious, Clinton became a devoted Baptist from a very young age. On Sunday mornings, he woke himself up, put on his best dress clothes and walked half a mile to Park Place Baptist Church to attend services alone. Clinton was especially drawn to the gospel music performed at his church. He began playing the jazz saxophone, and by the time he graduated from high school, many considered him the best saxophonist in the city.

Throughout his childhood, Clinton grew increasingly disturbed by his stepfather's drinking and abusive behavior toward his mother and younger half-brother. At the age of 14, already standing more than 6 feet tall, Clinton finally snapped. He told his stepfather, "If you want them, you'll have to go through me." The abuse stopped, but Roger Clinton's drinking did not, and Clinton's mother divorced him in 1962.

Clinton attended Hot Springs High School, a segregated all-white school, where he was a stellar student and a star member of the jazz band. The principal of Hot Springs High School, Johnnie Mae Mackey, placed a special emphasis on producing students devoted to public service, and she developed a strong bond with the smart and politically inclined Clinton.

In June 1963, as a 17-year-old high school junior, he attended Arkansas Boys State, where he was elected the Arkansas representative to the American Legion's Boys Nation, earning him an invitation to meet President John F. Kennedy at the White House Rose Garden. A photograph of the young Bill Clinton shaking hands with President Kennedy has become an iconic image symbolizing a passing of the baton between generations of modern Democratic leadership.