Michael Spinks is a former professional boxer and Olympic gold medalist. He was born on November 3, 1956, to Leon Spinks Jr. and Kay Francis Spinks in St. Louis, Missouri. He is the younger brother of Leon Spinks, the professional boxer best known for defeating Muhammad Ali for the Undisputed Heavyweight Championship in 1978. Spinks attended Vashon High School in […]
Michael Spinks (1956–)
How school choice policies evolved from supporting Black students to subsidizing middle-class families Kendall Deas, Assistant Professor of Education Policy, Law, and Politics, University of South Carolina on June 9, 2025 at 12:24 pm
Originally developed as a tool to help Black children attend better schools, school voucher programs now serve a different purpose. Drazen via Getty Images School voucher programs that allow families to use public funds to pay tuition to attend private schools have become increasingly popular. Thirteen states and the District of Columbia currently operate voucher programs. In addition, 15 states […]
The Negro Boys Industrial School Fire (1959)
The Negro Boys Industrial School Fire, also known as the Wrightsville Fire, occurred on March 5, 1959, at the Negro Boys Industrial School (NBIS), a juvenile correctional facility for Black male youth located near Wrightsville, Arkansas. On that tragic day, twenty-one African American boys died in a dormitory fire at the facility. The NBIS was originally established to house juvenile […]
Nyjah Imani Huston (1994- )
Nyjah Imani Huston is an American professional skateboarder. He was born on November 30, 1994, to Adeyemi Huston and Kelle Huston in Davis, California. Huston and his siblings were raised in a strict Rastafarian lifestyle: they were vegans, and their mother homeschooled them. Huston began skateboarding at the age of five, introduced to the sport by his father, who was […]
Milton Lee Olive III (1946–1965)
Milton Lee Olive III was a United States Army soldier and the first African American to receive the Medal of Honor for his service in the Vietnam War. At just 18 years old, he heroically sacrificed his life by falling on a grenade to save the lives of his fellow soldiers on October 22, 1965, an act of extraordinary bravery […]
Seh-Dong-Hong-Beh (1835?-1860?)
Seh-Dong-Hong-Beh, a name that means ‘God Speaks True’ in the Fon language, was a remarkable leader of the Mino, also known as the Ahosi (the wives of the king) or the Dahomey Amazons. She was born in 1835 in the Kingdom of Dahomey, which is located in present-day Benin, West Africa. Ghezo, the eleventh king of Dahomey from 1818 to […]