Little Richard shatter racial divisions in the music industry. Little Richard was born Richard Wayne Penniman on December 5, 1932, in Macon, Georgia. He was the third of twelve children of Leva Mae (née Stewart) and Charles "Bud" Penniman. His father was a church deacon who sold bootlegged moonshine on the side and owned a nightclub, the Tip In Inn. His mother was a member of Macon's New Hope Baptist Church. Initially, Little Richard's first name was supposed to have been "Ricardo" but an error resulted in "Richard" instead. The Penniman children were raised in a neighborhood of Macon called Pleasant Hill.
Frances Montresor Buchanan Allen Penniman went to Boston. That she was on good terms with him, is indicated by a clause of his will made while he was imprisoned in Boston, which gave to her one-third of his property. Penniman had been engaged, previous to her first marriage, to a British officer who died attempting to cross the Hudson River in a small boat in a storm. In early 1777, at the age of 16, Penniman married Capt. John Buchanan, a British army officer who was killed shortly thereafter in service of the King's Loyal Rangers. Their only child died before 1784. After her husband's