There's a photo of him in a school class picture from the 50s. He's one of maybe two black kids in the whole class. Looks like a happy kid to me.
Second row, third from left:
http://www.bing.com/images/search?q=Jimi+Hendrix+school+picture&view=detailv2&&id=D3CC40CA505D4554A6481A1C519100FDBD0BB0C7&selectedIndex=10&ccid=mbrS%2baDq&simid=607986917088759411&thid=OIP.M99bad2f9a0eadcba5a9bbf103dc7ac2do0&PC=MOZA&ajaxhist=0
In a class of 25 you would expect on average 3 black kids. That’s it if the entire country had a nearly perfect distribution of blacks. Very few blacks I know will tolerate living in an area with less than 30% black. Which means whole swaths of America have very few black people and it’s not because they are racists. I have been in plenty of those communities all across the country and generally speaking the few blacks in those places have celebrity status.