 Frank was born Barnett Frank in Bayonne, New Jersey, one of four children of Elsie (née Golush) and Samuel Frank. His family was Jewish, and his grandparents had immigrated from Poland and Russia. Frank ’ s father ran a truck stop in Jersey City — a place Frank has described as "totally corrupt" — and when Frank was 6 or 7, served a year in prison for refusing to testify to a grand jury against Frank ’ s uncle. Frank was educated at Harvard College, where he resided in Matthews Hall his first year and then in Kirkland House and Winthrop House. He graduated in 1962. One of his roommates was Hastings Wyman of Aiken, South Carolina, later a political consultant who in 1978 began publishing The Southern Political Report. When Wyman invited Frank to visit in Aiken in the early 1960s, Frank made a point of drinking from the since-abolished "colored-only" water fountain then available to African Americans.
