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.
Penniman, Virginia June 1, 1916. In July 1916, the Williamsburg Chamber of Commerce requested the C&O establish passenger train service between the city and Penniman. By the fall of 1918, Penniman was a town of about 15,000 inhabitants; three passenger trains a day passed each way between Williamsburg and Penniman. In November 1918, the armistice which ended World War I was signed, which meant the end of need for the ammunitions plant. The village eventually deteriorated and closed. For a while after World War I, Penniman was used for demilitarization activities. The workers of Penniman left when the jobs ended after what