1933-
Nation of Islam Leader

The Charmer.

Born Louis Eugene Walcott in the Roxbury section of Boston in 1933, Gene was the younger of two sons of Mae Clark, an immigrant from Barbados. Walcott's father, a Jamaican immigrant, was largely absent in Gene's life, but his mother more than made up for the absence. Her children attended St. Cyprian's, an Episcopal church, and were close with the pastor, Nathan Wright. She also paid for her sons to take music lessons. Gene became an accomplished violinist, scholar, and athlete, winning an athletic scholarship to college in North Carolina. Frustrated with the racism he encountered in the South, he dropped out of school to take up a career as a calypso singer and became known as "the Charmer." He was losing patience with the religion of his youth and told Henry Louis Gates, "I couldn't understand why Jesus would...