Many musicians made their marks on the pop and rock movements that came to define the 1950s. Elvis Presley, for instance, became such a sensation that he was later dubbed the King of Rock and Roll, while Chuck Berry revolutionized rock with the way he centralized guitar riffs within rhythm and blues music. Still, few voices are as immediately recognizable or era-defining as Frankie Lymon's.

Lymon and his band, The Teenagers, were known for their catchy, swinging melodies which were popular among 1950s youth. Their distinctive sound -- and Lymon's upbeat voice and lyrics -- have inspired musicians as wide-ranging as Michael Jackson, The Beach Boys, Billy Joel, The Temptations, and The Mountain Goats. However, Lymon's life itself was far from upbeat. Plagued by racism, a difficult childhood, and the perils of child fame, Lymon led a tragic life that epitomized the hypocrisy and inhumanity of segregationist America.

Lymon Had a Challenging Upbringing -- and Those Challenges Followed Him His Whole Life

Frankie Lymon was born Franklin Joseph Lymon in New York City in 1942. His Washington Heights upbringing was a difficult one. In a 1967 conversation with Ebony magazine reporter Art Peters, he recalled, "I never was a child, although I was billed in every theater and auditorium where I appeared as a child star. I was a man when I was 11 years old, doing everything that most men do. In the neighborhood where I lived, there was no time to be a child. There were five children in my family, and my folks had to scuffle to make ends meet. My father was a truck driver and my mother worked as a domestic in white folks' homes. While kids my age were playing stickball and marbles, I was working in the corner grocery store carrying orders to help pay the rent."

Indeed, the reality of Lymon's life stands in stark contrast with his public image. At just 12 years old, Lymon joined the doo-wop group The Teenagers, which shot to fame just two years later, in 1956, with the success of the track "Why Do Fools Fall in Love," which topped the Billboard R&B chart for five consecutive weeks. Lymon became known as the "boy soprano" for his high, lilting voice and his young age. Furthermore, many of The Teenagers' songs emphasized their youth, with titles such as "Teenage Love," "I'm Not Too Young to Fall in Love," and "Mama Don't Allow It."

Meanwhile, Lymon struggled not only with the trauma of his past, but also with the pitfalls of fame. He was addicted to heroin by the age of 15 -- a struggle that ultimately resulted in his untimely death at the age of 25. While record labels marketed him for his highly manufactured innocence, they also put him in dangerous situations and bogged him down with the pressure to create hit after hit. And, for a while, Lymon and The Teenagers thrived, releasing popular singles such as "I Want You to Be My Girl," "I Promise to Remember," and "Goody Goody." The band's buoyant sound and Lymon's soaring soprano became embedded in the soundtrack of the 1950s, and they set the stage for successors such as The Jackson 5. At just 13 years old, Lymon was a global sensation -- and the first ever African-American teen star.

Lymon's Career Was Thwarted by American Racism

Much like his fellow African-American musicians, Lymon was never truly accepted by white Americans -- even though they, too, listened to his music and bought his records. In 1957, at the height of The Teenagers' fame, Lymon was bombarded with hate after he was filmed dancing with a Caucasian girl who'd jumped on stage during his performance on The Big Beat. Audiences were enraged, as America was still segregated, and The Big Beat was canceled shortly after. The dynamic is hypocritical and reminiscent of the minstrel show practice, in which Black creatives were expected to perform on-demand for white audiences -- often at their own expense -- and then make themselves scarce.

In another TV appearance in 1960, white audiences at The Saturday Night Beech-Nut Show appeared shocked and displeased to discover that Lymon was not Caucasian and that his band was exclusively African-American and Puerto Rican. In a clip that has gone viral in recent years, several Caucasian women refuse to clap or dance, while others make faces of disdain. As the tumultuous 1960s rolled on, The Teenagers waned in popularity, and Lymon descended further into his addiction.

In 1968, at the age of 25, he was found dead of a heroin overdose on his grandmother's bathroom floor. And even in death, he was plagued by indignity: He was buried in an unmarked grave for years, until a New Jersey music store started a fundraiser for a proper burial. They raised enough for a headstone, but that headstone was never installed, and it wasn't until the late 1990s that Lymon was finally given a proper grave at St. Raymond's Cemetery in the Bronx, New York.

Lymon was killed by heroin, but he was above all the victim of a racist system that abused, used, and discarded him at will. And in a society that still plays The Teenagers' music in idyllic, whitewashed films about the 1950s (the band's songs feature prominently in American Graffiti, for instance), it's clear that America still has not fully reckoned with the damage it did to its Black and Brown creatives during the early and mid-twentieth century. Why was Lymon's music held up as the pinnacle of postwar optimism while his young body lay in an unmarked grave? Why are his struggles with addiction not discussed in context with the institutional racism that he, his family, and his band faced? And, perhaps most importantly, how far could America's first African-American teen rock star have gone if it weren't for white supremacy?

The Sad Truth Behind the Singer Who Defined the Sound of the 1950s