He never met his real father

At the Julia Chester Hospital in Hope, Arkansas, Clinton was born. He was born to Virginia Dell Cassidy and William Jefferson Blythe Jr., a traveling salesman who had perished in an auto accident three months earlier (later Virginia Kelley). Soon after Bill was born, Virginia left him in Hope with her parents, who had a small grocery shop, and went to New Orleans to study nursing. Clinton's grandparents sold items on credit to customers of all races under the racial segregation that prevailed in the southern United States at the time.

Although Virginia Dell Blythe and Roger Clinton's marriage was rocky (they split and then remarried) and her husband was an alcoholic, their kid eventually adopted his stepfather's name. Although he immediately began using his stepfather's last name, Clinton did not formally take his stepfather's last name as his own until he was 15 years old. According to Clinton, his stepfather was an alcoholic and a gambler who frequently mistreated his mother and half-brother, Roger Clinton Jr. He repeatedly threatened to use violence against his stepfather to keep them safe.

Bill Clinton, who was raised in part by his maternal grandmother, had political aspirations from an early age. According to him, these dreams were cemented in July 1963 when he met and shook hands with President John F. Kennedy.