Aaron McGruder was born in Chicago Illinois. When McGruder's father accepted a job with the National Transportation Safety Board, McGruder moved to at age six with his parents and his older brother. He attended a Jesuit school from grades seven to nine, followed by public high school at Oakland Mills High School and the University of Maryland, College Park, from which he graduated with a degree in African American Studies. The Boondocks debuted in the student newspaper, Diamondback, in late 1997, under its then-editor, Jayson Blair. McGruder created the comic while working at the Presentation Graphics Lab on campus. At the time, he was also a DJ on the "Soul Controllers Mix Show" on WMUC.