US District Judge, Michelle Childs, was born in Detroit.
Her parents divorced when she was young.
Her father, Ralph “Pete” Childs, was a champion table tennis player who won the U.S. Junior Championship in 1964 at age 16; he joined the Detroit Police Department as an officer in 1970.
Her mother, a personnel manager for Michigan Bell Telephone, decided to move to Columbia, South Carolina, when Childs was 14 years old due to rising crime in Detroit.
Childs’ father remained in Detroit and died in 1980 at age 32 from a gunshot wound, possibly self-inflicted.
She attended Columbia High School, where she graduated in 1984 as class president and valedictorian. She also took part in youth beauty pageants and won the Miss Black Florida pageant in 1986.
Childs was inspired to pursue a legal career after participating in mock trial programs, first in high school and later at the University of South Florida, which she attended on scholarship.
She is a member of Delta Sigma Theta Sorority. She graduated cum laude in 1988 with a Bachelor of Arts degree in management from the University of South Florida.
She enrolled at the University of South Carolina School of Law, wanting to practice law in her home state, and graduated in 1991 with a Juris Doctor.
Childs also earned a Master of Arts degree in personnel and employment relations from the University of South Carolina School of Business in 1991.
In 2016, she received her L.L.M. in judicial studies from Duke University School of Law.