Dr. Janet Dewart Bell is a communications strategist and management consultant with a multimedia background, as well as experience in policy advocacy, strategic planning, fund development, media training, and education. She is a social justice advocate, activist, executive coach, and motivational speaker. Her doctorate paper was African American Women Leaders in the Civil Rights Movement: A Narrative Inquiry. An Enduring Leadership Legacy of Authenticity, Courage, and Purpose. She interviewed Myrlie Evers, Leah Chase, Dr. June Jackson Christmas, Kathleen Cleaver, Jean Fairfax, Aileen Hernandez, Gay McDougall, Diane Nash, Gloria Richardson (Dandridge), and Judy Richardson. Previously, she was the Director of Communications at the National Urban League, where she redesigned, edited, and marketed the League’s signature annual publication, The State of Black America. Media includes: PolicyLink, National Urban League, National Public Radio, The ED Show.
Koritha Mitchell is an associate professor of English at Ohio State University. Her research centers on African American literature, racial violence in United States history and contemporary culture, and black drama and performance. She examines how texts, both written and performed, help targeted communities to survive and thrive. Media includes: WBNS-10TV, PBS, ColorLines.com, Michael Eric Dyson radio show.
JeffriAnne Wilder is a sociologist and scholar specializing in diversity, race relations and gender issues. In addition to her studies in sociology, JeffriAnne also completed a concentration in Women's Studies and Gender Research. As a black woman and sociologist, Dr. Wilder is very passionate about connecting sociology to the everyday issues occurring within our society. She writes, researches, and lectures on the contemporary experience of black Americans and other racial/ethnic minorities. Media includes: 20/20, Nightline, The New York Times, National Public Radio, The Grio, Huff Post Live.
Kristal Brent Zook speaks regularly on popular culture and gender, multiracial identity and blackness, as well as social justice issues involving health, the environment and criminal justice. The author of three books, her latest is I See Black People: Interviews with African American Owners of Radio and Television. Her previous book, Black Women's Lives: Stories of Power and Pain, is a collection of intimate portraits of women across the country, from an organic farmer in Vermont, to a filmmaker in Los Angeles. Media includes: New York Times, Washington Post, CNN, C-SPAN, NPR, FOX.
Shanelle Matthews currently serves as a the Lead Communications Strategist for the Black Lives Matter National Network, Black Lives Matter is an international network of more than 30 chapters working to rebuild the black liberation movement and affirm the lives of all black people - specifically black women, queer and trans people, people who are differently abled, and those who are undocumented and formerly incarcerated. Media includes: Al Jazeera, KPFA, RH Reality Check, Feministing, Racialicious, The Frisky.
Emmy Award-winning journalist, historian, publisher, and producer, Janus Adams is the author of eleven books; founder and publisher of BackPax children’s media. As author and historian, her “McDonald’s Presents Glory Days” Black History Month campaigns – built on the success of her Glory Days history trilogy – reached more than 3 million consumers. In 1990, Adams founded Harambee, the first national book club for African American literature; changing the publishing landscape for authors and readers. Her master’s is the nation’s first graduate degree in Black Studies. Media includes: ABC, AirAmerica, BET, CBS, CNN, Fox, Hearst News, NBC, NPR, Newsday, USA Today.
Charlene Carruthers is a Black, queer feminist community organizer and writer with over 10 years of experience in racial justice, feminist and youth leadership development movement work. She currently serves as the national director of the Black Youth Project 100 (BYP100), an activist member-led organization of Black 18-35 year olds dedicated to creating justice and freedom for all Black people. Media includes: NPR, MSNBC, World BBC News, and WGN TV.
Amy Alexander is author of four nonfiction books, including the bestseller, Fifty Black Women Who Changed America; and Lay My Burden Down: Unraveling Suicide and the Mental Health Crisis Among African-Americans, co-authored with Alvin. F. Poussaint, M.D. and Uncovering Race, A Black Journalist's Story of Reporting and Reinvention (Beacon Press). Media includes: The CBS Morning News, C-SPAN'S "Washington Journal", NPR, WNYC's "The Leonard Lopate Show", "Democracy Now, With Amy Goodman".
Leah Wright Rigueur is an author, historian, speaker, and Assistant Professor of Public Policy at the Harvard Kennedy School of Government. She is an expert in race and politics, US political and social history, African American politics and history, and riots and American backlash, and holds a Ph.D. in History from Princeton University. Media includes: CNN, MSNBC, CBS News, PBS, NPR, The New York Times, The Washington Post.
Judy Lubin is a policy analyst, sociologist and president of Public Square Communications, a Washington, D.C. area boutique research, communications and public policy consulting firm. Dr. Lubin is also an adjunct professor in the Department of Sociology at Howard University and is a researcher and lecturer on health policy and health disparities. Dr. Lubin is also co-founder of Sociologists for Justice, an independent collective of nearly 2000 experts, researchers and distinguished scholars organized in response to the epidemic of police brutality in communities of color. Media includes: Huffington Post, theRoot.com, NBC News Washington, Wall Street Journal, PBS.org.
Dr. Christina Greer is an Assistant Professor of Political Science at Fordham University - Lincoln Center (Manhattan) campus. Her research and teaching focus on American politics, black ethnic politics, urban politics, quantitative methods, Congress, New York City and New York State politics, campaigns and elections, and public opinion. Prof. Greer's book Black Ethnics: Race, Immigration, and the Pursuit of the American Dream (Oxford University Press) investigates the increasingly ethnically diverse black populations in the US from Africa and the Caribbean. Media includes: New York Times, ABC Channel 7, NBC Nightly News, Fox 5 Good Day New York, WFUV.
Scholar, teacher, author, administrator and race relations expert Dr. Beverly Daniel Tatum was the ninth president of Spelman College. Dr. Tatum is a clinical psychologist whose areas of research include black families in white communities, racial identity in teens, and the role of race in the classroom. For over 20 years, Dr. Tatum taught her signature course on the psychology of racism. She has also toured extensively, leading workshops on racial identity development and its impact in the classroom. Media includes: The Oprah Winfrey Show, CNN, New York Times, Washington Post, C-SPAN.
Melanie L. Campbell is an expert and passionate advocate on issues impacting African Americans, women, immigrants and youth and the intersection of how politics, public policy, race, gender, class and age impacts quality life for all Americans. Ms. Campbell has a strong knowledge base in Black voter participation, civil rights, voting rights, women’s rights, election reform, Katrina-Rita Gulf Coast recovery and rebuilding, Census Count, youth leadership development, non-profit management and cross-cultural coalition building. Media includes: CNN Paula Zahn, Washington Journal (C-SPAN), National Public Radio, Tom Joyner Morning Show, Bev Smith Show, XM Radio, Pacifica Radio, BET.
Chagmion Antoine is an award-winning journalist, producer and actor. At twenty three, she made history by becoming the first openly LGBT female journalist to be featured on national television as an anchor and reporter for CBS News in New York and MTV's Logo Channel. In her role at CBS, Antoine was a pioneer in covering intersections of gender, race and politics particularly in the lesbian, bisexual and transgendered communities. She has been included in various lists as a notable personality in the LGBT and black history. Media includes: CBS News, The Logo Channel, AfterElle, Sirius Satellite Radio, Curve Magazine.
Celeste Faison is the Black Organizer Cordinator at National Domestic Workers Alliance and co-founder of the Blackout Collective. She is a community organizer and direct action trainer. Cutting her teeth as a youth organizer, she was the lead organizer at Youth together and the co-director of Project Fame, an in-school, and after school program that taught Black history, literature, algebra, organizing and the arts, in Alabama public schools. Media includes: KPFS, NBC News, AlterNet, USA Today, San Francisco Bay View, Tides Blog, Metroactive Music.
Julene Allen is a Chicago native, military veteran, and former insurance professional turned women’s rights activist, journalist and is the Executive Director of Women For Action, a 501(c)(3). She founded the multi-media nonprofit which elevates the work of under-recognized women trailblazers through interviews. She is also editor-in-chief of the women's rights newspaper, Women For Action Times. Extensive media experience.
Dr. Kimberly C. Ellis is a Scholar of American and Africana Studies, an award-winning Performing Artist, Activist and Entrepreneur who loves Technology and Social Media. Her work on American Studies, History, Women's Studies, Theater and Popular Culture can be found in The Paradox of Loyalty: An African American Response to the War on Terror by Third World Press. Media includes: BBC_WHYS, NPR, KDKA, WKQV News Radio, Voices of Russia Radio, The League of Young Voters, UStream #ignite2012, MomsRising Radio.
Vanessa C. Tyson currently teaches in the Department of Politics at Scripps College in Claremont, CA. Her courses include Black Americans and the Political System; Women and Public Policy; Introduction to Public Policy; Research Design; and Environmental Policy in the US. Dr. Tyson’s book, Twists of Fate: Multiracial Coalitions and Minority Representation in the US House of Representatives (Oxford University Press, 2016), explores structural inequality in policy formulation in the United States, and how members of Congress have formed multiracial coalitions as a strategy to provide for their diverse constituencies. Media includes: US News and World Report, the Sacramento Bee, NPR, The Huffington Post, The Bryan Callen Show.
Loretta June Ross was a co-founder and the National Coordinator of the SisterSong Women of Color Reproductive Justice Collective from 2005-2012, a network founded in 1997 of women of color and allied organizations that organize women of color in the reproductive justice movement. She is one of the creators of the term "Reproductive Justice" coined by African American women in 1994 following the International Conference on Population and Development in Cairo, Egypt. Media includes: CNN, ABC, BET, New York Times, Washington Post.
Liz Theran
