Daniel Sunjata

Sunjata was born and grew up in Chicago, the adopted son of Bill and Catherine Condon, a police dispatcher and a civil rights worker. His adoptive parents are of Irish and Italian-German descent. He is named in honor of the African king Sundiata Keita, founder of the Mali Empire; the name means "hungry lion." He was told his biological mother was a white teenager who had run away from home and his father was black. He graduated from Mount Carmel High School in Chicago, where he played linebacker for two state championship football teams. He completed his undergraduate studies at Florida A&M University and the University of Louisiana at Lafayette. He received a master\'s degree in fine arts from the Graduate Acting Program at New York University\'s Tisch School of the Arts. He is of Black, German, and Irish descent.\n', '

Sunjata played the role of a sailor on shore leave on the first po…