Twelve years since the Ferguson uprising, police violence is still often discussed through numbers, cases, policies, and public arguments. At Campaign Zero, we know those things matter—but every number began with a person, and every person belonged to a family.
Lezley McSpadden-Head, Michael Brown’s mother, was never given the chance to grieve her son in private.
On August 9, 2014, eighteen-year-old Michael Orlandus Darrion Brown—“Mike Mike” to the people who loved him—was murdered by a Ferguson, Missouri police officer. Before his family could begin to process the loss, Michael’s body, his name, and his mother’s grief had become a national argument.
Most people remember what followed: the protests, the tear gas, more than 400 days of uprising, and a name that became a rallying cry from Ferguson to communities across the country.
Campaign Zero exists because of that moment. The demand that came out of Ferguson was not only to show us the data and change the policy, but to stop the killing. That is the demand we have spent the last decade trying to answer.
But the story did not end when the cameras moved on.
While grieving in public, Lezley refused to let her son’s name become only a symbol of loss. She founded the Michael O.D. Brown We Love Our Sons & Daughters Foundation and built it on Michael’s legacy.
Today, the St. Louis-based nonprofit works at the intersection of justice, health, education, and family. Through scholarships, student care packages, and community support, Lezley continues to build and expand what the Foundation can offer young people.
Meet the 2025-26 Scholarship Awardees
The Foundation’s flagship program is the Michael O.D. Brown Memorial Scholarship, which provides $3,000 awards to graduating high school seniors across the St. Louis region who demonstrate academic achievement, financial need, and a commitment to social justice, the performing arts, or the skilled trades.
Campaign Zero has worked alongside Lezley and the Foundation to strengthen this work: helping build the scholarship-selection process, co-hosting the annual scholarship dinner in St. Louis, coordinating dorm-ready care packages for recipients, and supporting the Foundation’s storytelling and fundraising.
For Campaign Zero, this partnership is part of the same work as our research and policy advocacy: supporting a future in which young people can live, learn, and thrive.
Across its first three award cycles, the program has awarded 63 scholarships.
Fifteen students received awards in 2024. Eighteen received them in 2025. For the 2026–27 school year, the Foundation expanded the class to 30 scholarship awardees in honor of what would have been Mike’s 30th birthday.
That is the number we want people to sit with today: 63 young people from Michael’s community pursuing degrees, certifications, careers in the trades and arts, and futures of their own—the kind of future Michael should have had the chance to build.
The support continues after the award ceremony. This August and September, the Foundation will send dorm-ready care packages directly to students at their schools, helping them begin the year with practical support and a reminder that their community is standing behind them.
At the beginning of the school year this fall, the Foundation will launch the 2027–28 scholarship cycle. It will mark the program’s fourth year, with a goal of expanding the scholarship class again.
63 Scholarships Across Three Award Cycles
15 in 2024
18 in 2025
30 for the 2026–27 school year
Fourth scholarship cycle launching this fall
Lezley built the Foundation on Michael’s legacy, and she continues to expand what it can offer young people. Supporting this work means helping fund future scholarships, providing care packages to students beginning the school year, and strengthening the Foundation’s ability to sustain the work year-round.
Last year, Campaign Zero partnered with Lemonada Media to produce Still My Baby, an audio series that centers Lezley’s voice, honors Michael’s life, and tells their family’s story in her own words.
The series paints a family portrait through stories of Mike as a funny, big-hearted kid, Lezley as a young mother, the people who loved them, the life they shared before August 9, and the years the family has navigated since.
Episode 2, “They Shot Mike Mike,” is about August 9 itself—and what it costs to grieve while the world watches.
It’s the episode to listen to today.
You can find the full series wherever you get your podcasts and learn more at stillmybaby.org.
At our core, we’re a data and policy organization. We publish the numbers on police violence because the data helps move us from outrage to policy—and policy is how we work to stop the next August 9.
But the numbers came from somewhere.
Every data point in every database was a person, and every person belonged to a family. This work began with one family in Ferguson that should never have had to become public about any of it.
So today: listen to Lezley. Fund a scholarship. Support a student care package. Invest in the Foundation’s future.
The 63 students supported so far—and the fourth scholarship cycle launching this fall—are part of the same fight behind every law we have helped change: the fight for young people to live, learn, and thrive.
Lezley built the Foundation on Michael’s legacy. Twelve years later, she is still building—and Campaign Zero continues to support the work alongside her.
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