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    Kweisi Mfume had several stints in jail before becoming a congressman and serving as president of the NAACP.

    When Mfume was 16, his mother died from cancer and that made things spin "out of control."

    “Not only did I run with all the worst people, I became the leader,” Mfume told U.S. News and World Report.”I was locked up a couple of times on suspicion of theft because I happened to be black and happened to be young.”

    He dropped out of high school and fathered five children while he was still a teenager himself.

    At some point, he decided to change his life around and enrolled in college. Mfume would go on to get his graduate degree from John Hopkins University, be elected to the Baltimore City Council, Congress, and become president of the NAACP.