Has received an Edward R. Murrow Award and three regional Emmy Awards.
He is the son of Katherine Marie (Bouligney) and Wilmon Lee Richardson. His father was an attorney, who was part of a lawsuit to desegregate Baton Rouge's public transportation in the early 1960s; it was successful. Don was born under the surname of his mother's then-husband.
Was sexually abused as a child.
After attending Louisiana State University, Lemon graduated from Brooklyn College in Brooklyn, New York, majoring in broadcast journalism,.
He is of mostly an Afro-descendant, with a smaller amount of French and English/Scots-Irish. His maternal grandmother was the daughter of a white father and a black mother.