Owens was born in Oakville, Alabama and moved to Cleveland, Ohio when he was nine years old as the seventh of the eleven children of Henry and Emma Owens. Owens was the grandson of a slave and the son of a sharecropper. He was often sick with what his mother reportedly called ""the devil's cold"". He was given the name "Jesse" by a teacher in Cleveland who did not understand his accent when the young boy said he was called "J.C." 