The Real ‘Nickel Boys’: How Researchers Are Preserving Stories of Black Boys Who Died in State Custody
If the 2024 film, “Nickel Boys,” left you horrified by what some Black boys endured inside America’s juvenile reform schools, the real history behind the film adaptation of Colson Whitehead’s novel is even more devastating. More than 1,000 children are buried at former juvenile detention centers and reform schools across the country. Now, researchers with the Forgotten Children Initiative are working to make sure their stories don’t stay buried with them.
According to their website, the Georgetown University initiative is identifying children—mostly Black—who died while in state custody, locating their graves and, when possible, reconnecting them with surviving family members. In the film, the bodies of those boys were ultimately buried in unmarked graves near the fictional school of Nickel Academy, which took inspiration from the real-life Dozier School for Boys in Florida. Sadly, the burial style is similar for other segregated institutions of today, including the House of Reformation and Instruction for Colored Children in Maryland.
As of October 2026, the aforementioned initiative has found the graves of over 1,000 children across nearly 30 states, according to NPR. The largest “burial site” is located near the House of Reformation, now renamed the Cheltenham Youth Detention Center. Established in 1870, the House of Reformation was the South’s first juvenile detention facility for Black kids, with children as young as five years old being sent there and subjected to horrific abuse and living conditions, per researchers.
According to a report from the Maryland Department of Juvenile Services, the boys were often forced to work with no food, disciplined by white guards with a “brass-studded belt,” made to work at nearby farms for virtually no pay, and more. And as we previously told you, more than 300 Black boys and young men died while confined at Cheltenham, with many graves marked with stones, concrete blocks, or no markers at all.
Now, thanks to the work of the Forgotten Children Initiative, the state of Maryland has created a commission made up of members of some of the forgotten children who will help determine the future of the site and how the state should make amends for its mistreatment of the children at the institution.
Maryland Senator Will Smith recently spoke to NPR about the commission and its aim, saying: “Understanding this history is tremendously important, but understanding how this history connects to our current practices is almost probably more important.”
The commission is set to release an initial report by the end of 2027.
