a ramshackle dwelling on Bell Chapel Road, located about 1 mi off State Route 50 and roughly 6 mi from LaFayette--Louis was the seventh of eight children of Munroe Barrow and Lillie (Reese) Barrow. He weighed 11 lb 0 at birth. Both of his parents were children of former slaves, alternating between sharecropping and rental farming.

Louis suffered from a speech impediment