Roland Johnson was born in Philadelphia on Sept. 14, 1945, to Grace and Roy Johnson. But Roland’s parents refused to do that and tried to raise him at home. In his book, Johnson describes himself as having had an insatiable appetite and a penchant for stealing food from stores and running away. His mother, he wrote, “didn’t know how to handle me.”To punish him, he said, she’d first heat a knife on a stove. My mother tried but she couldn’t take it anymore.”

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Persons: Roland Johnson, Grace, Roy Johnson, Rosemary, Johnson, Roland, “, ” LaVerne Cheatham, didn’t, ” Locations: Philadelphia