Some of today’s biggest stars had quite the humble beginnings. From Tyler Perry to Beyoncé to Michael Jordan, several notable Black celebrities grew up in neighborhoods similar to the fans that love them today. Join us as The Root takes a look at these famous childhood homes.
The late Michael Jackson—along with siblings Janet and seven other surviving Jackson children—grew up in a small white home in Gary, Indiana. In 2021, a sign was placed in front of the house stating it is the “Home of the World-Famous Jackson 5.” The front yard also features a statue of two kids playing.
Former First Lady Michelle Obama grew up on the top floor of this house on the South Side of Chicago. Her house was just a few blocks from the University of Chicago. The neighborhood was diverse and full of families just like the Obamas.
The childhood home of Kanye West is located on South Shore Drive in Chicago, Illinois. West grew up in the South Shore neighborhood with his late mother, Donda, after his parents divorced when he was just three years old. In 2021, he built a replica of the home for a listening party for his album “Donda” at Soldier Field.
Nina Simone’s was raised in a three-bedroom residence in Tyron, North Carolina. The legendary house was in a run down state when it was saved from ruin by the one and only tennis superstar Venus Williams.
The home of playwright August Wilson House is located in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. The structure was approved as a historical Pennsylvania site back in 2007. August Wilson’s writing was informed by his Hill District neighborhood, as several of his plays centered his community.
In 2020, Viola Davis released a tweet on her 55th birthday revealing a photo of her childhood house in Saint Matthews, South Carolina. Davis captioned the post: “The above is the house where I was born August 11, 1965. It is the birthplace of my story. Today on my 55th year of life....I own it....all of it.”
Michael Jordan’s childhood home is located in Wilmington, NC. He spent most of his childhood there and even played for the North Carolina Tar Heels. Jordan also once became majority owner of the NBA’s Charlotte Bobcats.
Vice President Kamala Harris spent most of her early childhood in Berkeley, California where her mother attended graduate school. For nearly six years, Harris lived above a daycare facility on Bancroft Way in West Berkeley, better know known as “the flatlands” which was vital for the city’s Black population.
Over the years, Jay Z has boasted about his stark upbringing in Brooklyn’s public housing project Marcy Houses. Located in the Bedford-Stuyvesant neighborhood, it’s where the emcee was raised alongside his three older siblings by mother Gloria Carter.
Whitney Houston was born in Newark, New Jersey but grew up in a modest home in East Orange. Her family settled into a two-story clapboard house. Houston’s mother, gospel singer Cissy Houston, kept recording equipment in the basement.
The house that groundbreaking baseball player Jackie Robinson grew up in is located at 121 Pepper Street, Pasadena, California. The home is still in the process of being memorialized. Robinson remains the only player to have his number retired across all of Major League Baseball. He played his entire career with the Dodgers, while they were in Brooklyn, New York.
As a young child, legendary film star Hattie McDaniel briefly lived in this home on Cherry Street in Fort Collins, Colorado and attended Franklin School. In 1939, she became the first Black person to win an Oscar but was banned from the premiere of the film due to racism.
Tyler Perry had a challenging childhood in New Orleans, where he lived in a three-bedroom home. According to an interview with the New York Times, Perry “often peered out the front window of his family’s shotgun house in New Orleans at the mansions two blocks north. Two blocks south were the projects, the territory of gangs, drugs and crime.”
The Knowles family purchased a Houston, Texas home in 1982 and lived there until Beyoncé was 5 years old. The two-story home featured a lofted third floor, as well as a renovated kitchen and two fireplaces. In 2023, the home caught on fire—but the family living in it managed to escape.
