Biographical Information
Scope and Content Note: Born March 2, 1909, in Mississippi, the youngest of four boys. Moved to Chicago in 1920 where he finished his grammar school education. In Mississippi his father owned a virtually self-sufficient cotton and corn farm which employed two other men. His father worked on the bridge gang of a railroad because more money could be made from that than from working the farm. His father moved to Chicago so his children would not have to be “raised under the political atmosphere of segregation, etc. in Mississippi.” His father worked in cold storage at the stockyards, caught pneumonia and died two years after moving to Chicago. All of the family's assets, including the farm, were dissipated by the father's illness. Todd's mother had to go to work as a domestic; Todd did not like this, so he quit school and got work in a pool room, passing for the legal age of 18 even though he was only 13. His mother did not have to work again for the rest of her life. His oldest brother died two years after his father's death.