William Jennings Jefferson, born on March 14, 1947, in Lake Providence, Louisiana, to sharecroppers Mose and Angeline Jefferson, was raised in poverty in rural East Carroll Parish. He attended G. W. Griffin High School locally before earning a bachelor's degree from Southern University in Baton Rouge in 1969, where he participated in Army ROTC and led protests against poor campus conditions. He later graduated from Harvard Law School and received an LL.M. in taxation from Georgetown University Law Center in 1996. A Democrat and attorney, Jefferson entered politics in the Louisiana House (1979-1983) and Senate (1983-1990) before serving as a U.S. Representative from Louisiana in the U.S. House from 1991 to 2009, becoming the state's first Black congressman since Reconstruction and chairing the Congressional Black Caucus (2001-2003). His tenure ended in scandal: in 2005, FBI agents raided his Washington home, discovering $90,000 in cash hidden in his freezer amid bribery allegations involving business deals in Africa. Convicted in 2009 on 11 felony counts including bribery, racketeering, and money laundering, he was sentenced to 13 years in 2012 but released in 2017 after an appeals court vacated some convictions; President Trump granted him a full pardon on January 20, 2021.