David Dinkins - Early Life

Early Life

Dinkins was born in Trenton, New Jersey, and raised by his father, his parents having separated when he was six years old. He moved to Harlem as a child but returned to Trenton and attended Trenton Central High School, where he graduated in 1945 in the top 10 percent of his class. After graduation, he attempted to enlist in the United States Marine Corps, but was told that a racial quota had been filled. He served in the Marine Corps from 1945 through 1946.

Dinkins graduated magna cum laude from Howard University with a degree in mathematics. He later graduated from Brooklyn Law School.

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