Gary Dwayne Payton II is an American professional basketball player for the Golden State Warriors of the National Basketball Association. Payton II was born on December 1, 1992 to parents NBA Hall of Famer Gary Payton and Monique James in Seattle, Washington. As a junior and senior playing college basketball for the Oregon State Beavers, Payton was named first-team ALL-Pac […]

Amar’e Stoudemire is an American-Israeli professional basketball player and coach, actor, and entrepreneur born in Lake Wales, Florida on November 16, 1982. After a successful career in the National Basketball Association, he moved to Israel to explore his Jewish identity. Stoudemire was born to Hazell and Carrie (née Palmorn) Stoudemire on November 16, 1982. The couple divorced when he was […]

Writer Gary Younge was born in January 1969 in Hertfordshire in England to Barbadian parents. He grew up in the town of Stevenage, which had a very small black population at the time. Gary and his two elder brothers, Pat and Wayne, were brought up by their mother, Reba, after his father, Patrick Younge, deserted the family home when Gary […]

Master guitarist, paralanguage hummer, and singer Joseph T. Spence was born on August 3, 1910, in Small Hope, Andros Island, Bahamas. Spence had one sister, Edith Pinder, who sang with him, and four half-brothers. However, there was no available information regarding the names of his parents or any offspring. His father was a preacher. When Spence was nine, his uncle, […]

American jazz guitarist, composer, and bandleader Grant Green, who recorded more than 30 albums, was an only child born to John Green and Martha Green in St. Louis, Missouri, on June 6, 1935. Grant’s early music lessons on the guitar were from his father, who was also a guitarist who bought young Grant a Harmony guitar and amplifier at an […]

The Chicago Sit-In, also known as the Jack Spratt Coffee House Sit-In, occurred on May 15, 1943, in Chicago, Illinois. The newly formed Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) organized the sit-ins at the Jack Spratt Coffee House in the Kenwood neighborhood on Chicago’s South Side. The sit-in was inspired a year earlier, in 1942. One afternoon in 1942, members of […]

The Royal Ice Cream Sit-In was a nonviolent protest that occurred on June 23, 1957, in Durham, North Carolina. The sit-in was led by Douglas E. Moore and began when he and seven other protestors entered the Royal Ice Cream Parlor and sat in the whites-only section. The sit-in helped influence future protests like the Greensboro Sit-Ins three years later. […]

Many high school students are now choosing their courses for the coming year. The choices students make in grades 10 and 11 will have a significant impact on their lives after graduation. But students, families — and even educators — have little information about the outcomes associated with different course types. Our research drew on data from 10 cohorts of […]

The First Black Power Conference occurred in Newark, New Jersey, from July 20 to July 23, 1967. More than 1,000 delegates representing 286 organizations and institutions from 126 cities and 26 states gathered in Newark just days after the 1967 Newark Riot, the worst civil disorder in New Jersey history. An Episcopal Church property in downtown Newark hosted the conference, […]

Madam Yoko, born Soma in the Gbo Chiefdom, was the head of the Mende people of Sierra Leone. She ruled the extensive Kpa Mende Confederacy for decades before her death. Also known as Mammy Yoko, she and three brothers were raised by their warrior father in the outlands of the West African country. Madam Yoko’s rise to power is attributed […]