Roscoe Simmons named after Roscoe Conkling
Early life and education
Simmons was born in Greenview, Mississippi in 1881. He was named after New York Republican congressman Roscoe Conkling. His sister was musician Alice Carter Simmons. Their father was principal at a school for African Americans in Hollandale, Mississippi. Simmons grew up in Aberdeen, Mississippi.The nephew of Booker T. Washington through Washington's third wife Margaret Murray Washington, when he was 12 years old Washington secured a job for him as an office boy to U.S. Senator Mark Hanna, a millionaire industrialist and the personal friend of William McKinley. Simmons' childhood spent with Hanna began his lifelong association with Republican politics and he would remain close friends with the powerful Hanna family for the rest of his life. Simmons graduated from the Tuskegee Institute.
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