20/06/2023
TODAY IS FOR LIONEL RICHIE
HAPPY BIRTHDAY GREAT SINGER
Richie was born on June 20, 1949, in Tuskegee, Alabama , the son of
Lionel Brockman Richie Sr. (1915–1990), a U.S. Army systems
analyst , and Alberta R. Foster (1917–2001), a teacher and school
principal. His grandmother Adelaide Mary Brown was a pianist who
played classical music. On March 4, 2011, he appeared on
NBC 's Who Do You Think You Are? , which found out that his maternal
great-grandfather was the national leader of an early Black
American fraternal organization
Richie grew up on the campus of Tuskegee Institute . Their family
home was given to his grandparents as a gift from Booker T.
Washington . He graduated from Joliet Township High School , East
Campus in Joliet, Illinois . A star tennis player in Joliet, he
accepted a tennis scholarship to attend Tuskegee Institute, where he
graduated with a Bachelor of Science degree in economics with a
minor in accounting.
Richie considered studying divinity to become a priest in the Episcopal
Church , in which he had been baptised, but ultimately decided he was
not "priest material" and decided to continue his musical career
despite not knowing how to read or write music. He is a
member of Kappa Kappa Psi , a national honor fraternity for band
members, and an active life member of Alpha Phi Alpha
fraternity.