Fishburne was born in Augusta, Georgia, the son of Hattie Bell Crawford, a junior high school mathematics and science teacher, and Laurence John Fishburne, Jr., a juvenile corrections officer.His parents divorced during his childhood and he moved with his mother to Brooklyn, New York where he was raised. Fishburne's father saw him once a month. He is a graduate of Lincoln Square Academy in New York, which closed in the 1980s.