Family Charles "Sonny" Liston was born circa 1930 into a sharecropping family that farmed the poor land of Morledge Plantation near Johnson Township, St. Francis County, Arkansas. His father, Tobe Liston, was in his mid 40s when he and his wife, Helen Baskin, who was almost 30 years younger than Tobe, moved to Arkansas from Mississippi in 1916. Helen had one child before she married Tobe, and Tobe had 13 children with his first wife. Tobe and Helen had 12 children together; Sonny was the second youngest child.
Family Charles "Sonny" Liston was born circa 1930 into a sharecropping family that farmed the poor land of Morledge Plantation near Johnson Township, St. Francis County, Arkansas. His father Tobe Liston, was in his mid 40s when he and his wife Helen Baskin who was almost 30 years younger than Tobe, moved to Arkansas from Mississippi in 1916. Helen had one child before she married Tobe, and Tobe had 13 children with his first wife. Tobe and Helen had 12 children together; Sonny was the second youngest child.