Early life and career of Bill Clinton Bill Clinton was born William Jefferson Blythe III on August 19, 1946, at Julia Chester Hospital in Hope, Arkansas. He was the son of William Jefferson Blythe Jr. (1918–1946), a traveling salesman who had died in an automobile accident three months before his birth, and Virginia Dell Cassidy (later Virginia Kelley: 1923–1994). His parents had married on September 4, 1943, but this union later proved to be bigamous, as Blythe had never divorced his third wife and was therefore still married to her. Soon after Bill was born, Virginia traveled to New Orleans, Louisiana to study nursing. She left her
William J. Jefferson William J. Jefferson William Jennings "Bill" Jefferson (born March 14, 1947) is a former Louisiana politician. He served as a member of the U.S. House of Representatives for nine terms from 1991 to 2009. A member of the Democratic Party, he represented , which includes much of the greater New Orleans area. He was elected as Louisiana's first black congressman since the end of Reconstruction. On November 13, 2009, Jefferson was sentenced to thirteen years in federal prison for bribery after a corruption investigation, the longest sentence ever given to a congressman. He began serving that sentence in May 2012