Dr. Avis Jones-DeWeever, is an Award-Winning Author, International Speaker, Political Commentator, and Race & Gender Empowerment Expert. As a prolific writer, Dr. Avis is the author or co-author of numerous publications, including her award-winning book, How Exceptional Black Women Lead along with The State of Black Women in the U.S. 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, and 2019; Beyond Broke: Why Closing the Racial Wealth Gap is a Priority for National Economic Security; Massive Resistance: A Way Forward for Black America in the Wake of Trump and You Mad? Black Women, Work, and the Normalcy of Disrespect, among many others. Media includes: The Washington Post, the Atlantic, Essence Magazine, Ebony Magazine, CNN, Fox News, PBS, C-Span, TV One, BET, BBC, NPR.

Koritha Mitchell is a 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. She is author of the new book From Slave Cabins to the White House: Homemade Citizenship in African American Culture and the award-winning book Living with Lynching: African American Lynching Plays, Performance, and Citizenship, 1890 - 1930. Media includes: Good Morning America, The Huffington Post, NBC, CNN, PBS, NPR.

JeffriAnne Wilder is a sociologist and leading scholar specializing in diversity, race relations and women’s empowerment. She is currently a Senior Research Scientist for the National Center for Women and Information Technology (NCWIT), a national non-profit organization aimed at broadening the participation of women and girls in computing. Prior to joining NCWIT, JeffriAnne was a tenured Associate Professor of Sociology and the Founding Director of the Institute for the Study of Race and Ethnic Relations at the University of North Florida. Media includes: The New York Times, Black Enterprise, The Grio, CNN, NPR.

Judy Lubin, PhD, MPH is a sociologist, policy analyst, racial justice advocate and founder and president of the Center for Urban and Racial Equity (CURE). She has 20 years of experience working at the intersection of racial equity, public health, communications, and policy advocacy. She is also a researcher and adjunct professor in the Department of Sociology and Criminology at Howard University where she leads community-centered urban research initiatives. Lubin is a former Congressional Black Caucus Foundation Public Health Fellow and co-founder of Sociologists for Justice, an independent collective of over 2,000 scholars organized in response to the disproportionate killing of Black people by police. Media includes: The Washington Post, Huffington Post, Al Jazeera, Ebony Magazine, Chicago Sun Times, Reuters, CNN, ABC News.

Kimberly Peeler-Allen has been working at the intersection of race, gender and politics for over 20 years. She is currently a Visiting Practitioner at the Center for American Women and Politics at Rutgers University where she serves as an advisor on CAWP’s ongoing research and election analysis, and guest lectures in various graduate and undergraduate courses. Inspired by the words of the late Congresswoman Shirley Chisholm, “If they don’t give you a seat at the table, bring a folding chair,” Peeler-Allen is driven to shift the paradigm for the civic voice of Black women. Over the course of her career Kimberly has advised elected officials, candidates and organizations on fundraising, political strategy and coalition building to ensure that there are more diverse voices around decision making tables whether they are in elected bodies or civil society. In 2011, she co-founded Higher Heights, the nation’s leading organization dedicated to building Black women’s collective political power from the voting booth to elected office. Media includes: The New York Times, The Washington Post, Politico, CBC, PBS, NPR.

Jilisa Milton is an Alabama-based civil rights attorney, policy analyst, social worker, racial justice activist, community organizer, and relational strategist. She has nearly a decade of experience working at the intersection of racial equity, critical race & feminist theory, poverty, criminal justice reform, mental health, and reproductive justice. Milton currently practices law in Alabama, implementing a project in the Black Belt that protects children with disabilities from entering the school to prison pipeline, and ensures access to disability-related legal services and health services. Media includes: Birmingham Times, Bloomberg Law, Reuters, Voice of America.

Carolyn M. West is Professor of Clinical Psychology in the School of Interdisciplinary Arts & Sciences and affiliate Professor in the Department of Gender, Women & Sexuality Studies at the University of Washington. She is a nationally recognized Black feminist scholar who investigates gender-based violence in the lives of African American women, with a focus on domestic violence, sexual assault, and sexual harassment. West has authored more than 70 academic publications and is editor/contributor of Violence in the Lives of Black Women: Battered, Black, and Blue (Routledge, 2002). She has taught courses on Sex Crimes and Sexual Violence, Family Violence, and the Psychology of Black Women for more than 30 years. Media includes: The San-Diego Union Tribune, Slate, The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Guardian, NBC, NPR.

A social scientist by training, Vanessa 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, The Huffington Post, NPR.

Kristal Brent Zook, Ph.D. is an award-winning journalist and 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. Kristal speaks regularly on popular culture and gender, multiracial identity and blackness, as well as social justice issues involving health, the environment and criminal justice. Media includes: Essence, The New York Times Sunday Magazine, The Washington Post, The Boston Globe, CNN, NPR.

Host and Co-Executive Producer of The Janus Adams Show, pioneer of issue-oriented women’s programming, former NPR correspondent, Janus Adams is an Emmy Award-winning journalist and scholar of women’s and African-American history. A northern school desegregation pioneer and mother, she is founder of BackPaxKids. Engaged by history since childhood, a northern school desegregation pioneer at 8, she was one of the four children selected to break New York’s “de facto” public school segregation in the wake of Brown v. Board of Education. Media includes: Essence, Ms. Magazines, The New York Times, Newsday, USA Today, The Washington Post, CBS, NPR.

Chandra Childers is a Study Director at the Institute for Women's Policy Research. She is an expert on social stratification and social and economic inequality by race and sex. Childers examines issues related to women and girls of color and job quality. Some of Chandra's publications include the Status of Black Women in the United States, Status of Women in the South, and Black and Hispanic Women Lag in Recovering from the Recession. Media includes: The Nation, The Atlantic, Voice of America, Refinery29, Al Jazeera.

Charlene A. Carruthers is a political strategist, cultural worker and PhD student in the Department of African American Studies at Northwestern University. A practitioner of telling more complete stories, her research includes interrogating historical conjunctures of Black freedom-making post-emancipation and decolonial revolution, Black governance, Black feminist and queer theory. She is author of the bestselling book, Unapologetic: A Black, Queer and Feminist Mandate for Radical Movements. Her work spans more than 15 years of community organizing across racial, gender and economic justice movements. As the founding national director of BYP100 (Black Youth Project 100), she has worked alongside hundreds of young Black activists to build a national member-led organization of Black 18-35 year olds dedicated to creating justice and freedom for all Black people. Media includes: The New York Times, The Washington Post, Chicago Reader, The Nation, Ebony, Essence Magazines, CNN, BBC, MSNBC.

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. Leah is the author of The Loneliness of the Black Republican: Pragmatic Politics and the Pursuit of Power (2015), a book that offers a much-needed critical examination of the tense relationship that exists between African Americans and the GOP. Media includes: The New York Times, The Washington Post, CBS News, MSNBC, PBS, NPR, CNN.

Treva B. Lindsey is a Black feminist cultural critic, historian, and commentator. She is the author of the Choice Outstanding Academic Title 2017: Colored No More: Reinventing Black Womanhood in Washington D.C. She is also a professor at The Ohio State University. Her work covers topics ranging from violence against women to fashion at the Met Gala. Many of her pieces focus on representations and experiences of Black women, although her work on race, gender, sexuality, culture and politics encompasses the far-reaching and often untold effects of current events and pop culture moments. Media includes: Al Jazeera, Complex, Vox, The Root, Huffington Post, PopSugar, Teen Vogue, The Grio, Cosmopolitan, BET.

Recognized as a Black Feminist Rising in 2017 by Black Women’s Blueprint, Trina Greene Brown is a leader on the rise and she’s taking Black parents and children along with her to higher heights. Bridging her 15 years of professional experience as a youth organizer in ending violence with her personal role as a parent of two Black children, Trina Greene Brown is a proud Black-feminist Mama-activist. In 2016, she founded Parenting for Liberation a platform for Black parents. Media includes: The Washington Post, On-Air with Ryan Seacrest.

Christina Greer is an Associate Professor of Political Science and American Studies at Fordham University (Lincoln Center Campus). She was the 2018 Fellow for the McSilver Institute for Poverty Policy and Research at New York University Silver School of Social Work. Her primary research and teaching interests are racial and ethnic politics, American urban centers, presidential politics, and campaigns and elections. Greer's book Black Ethnics: Race, Immigration, and the Pursuit of the American Dream (Oxford University Press, 2013 ) investigates the increasingly ethnically diverse Black populations in the US from Africa and the Caribbean. She is currently writing her second manuscript and conducting research on the history of all African Americans who have run for the executive office in the U.S. Media includes: The New York Times, MSNBC, NY1, NPR.

Khalilah (Ka-Lie-La) L. Brown-Dean, Ph.D. is Professor of Political Science and Associate Provost for Faculty Affairs at Quinnipiac University. She is the author of Identity Politics in the United States (Polity Press). The book moves beyond the headlines to show how conflicts over group identity are an inescapable feature of American political development. There’s no question that the United States is incredibly divided. Brown-Dean shows us how we got here, and more importantly, how we move forward. Media includes: The New York Times, The Hill, The Washington Post, Al Jazeera, Wall Street Journal, NPR.

Tia Sherèe Gaynor, Ph.D. is founding director for the Center for Truth, Racial Healing, and Transformation and an associate professor in the Department of Political Science. Her research focuses on issues related to social (in)justice, cultural competency, and social equity within a U.S. and global context, particularly as it relates to underrepresented and marginalized populations. Gaynor’s research examining the perceptions people of color who identify as lesbian, gay and transgender hold of the New Orleans Police Department is currently supported by the U.S. Department of Justice, Office of Justice Programs. Under the W.E.B. DuBois Program of Research on Race and Crime, Dr. Gaynor (along with research colleague Brandi Blessett, Ph.D.) was awarded $150,000 for her project titled “Intersectional Subjection and Law Enforcement: Examining Perceptions Held by LGBTQ People of Color in New Orleans, LA”. Media includes: Christian Science Monitor, Huffington Post, PopSugar, NPR.

Dr. Lessie Branch is a Racial Policy Scholar and a Fulbright Specialist in Race, Ethnicity and Religion in Politics, Director of The Think Tank at The Thinkubator, Director of Programs Community Relations at Citizens Committee for New York City and a Scholar with Scholars Strategy Network, and teaches in the Executive Leadership doctoral program with Saint John Fisher College. Her scholarship and practice examine the gulf between Black optimism about group progress and the actual data on continuing disparities, questions of social knowledge, social beliefs and relative group position through the transformative application of rhetorical criticism to interrogate narratives that structure social practices in ways that privilege some and marginalize others. She is the author of Optimism At All Costs: Black Attitudes, Activism, and Advancement in Obama’s America. Media includes: The New York Times, The Bronx Times, TEDx.

Melanie L. Campbell, President and CEO of the National Coalition on Black Civic Participation, 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. 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: The Washington Post, Black Enterprise, The New York Times, Philadelphia Tribune, CNN, NPR.

Emerald Christopher-Byrd is an Assistant Professor of Women & Gender Studies at the University of Delaware. She is the author of the upcoming book "Unfit for Marriage: Black Women and the Marriageability Debate." Her research focuses on the socio-political position of Black women in the United States. Her current research examines patriarchal misogyny in the Black community and its impact on women and girls. Extensive media experience.

Affectionately known as "Dr. Goddess," Kimberly C. Ellis, Ph.D. is a Scholar of American and Africana Studies, an award-winning Performing Artist, Activist and Entrepreneur as well as a playwright, world traveler and international thought leader on culture, gender and social technology. A popular speaker and presenter, Dr. Goddess was named one of the top "People of Color Impacting the Social Web," one of the "Top Ten Creative Women in Social Media" and one of the "Most Influential Black Women on Twitter." She is presently Director of Community, Arts and Culture for The Buccin/Pollin Group. Media includes: Ebony, Salon, Black Enterprise, Huffington Post, NPR.

C. Nicole Mason, PhD is the President and CEO of the Institute for Women's Policy Research. For the last 15 years, Nicole’s work has focused on issues related economic security and poverty; women’s issues and entitlement reforms; policy formation and political participation among women, communities of color and youth; and racial equity. She has also appeared as guest speaker at the Congressional Black Caucus, the Center for American Progress, the Essence Musical Festival Empowerment Series in New Orleans and on college campuses across the country. Media includes: The Huffington Post, Essence Magazine, POLITICO, RealClear Politics, The Wall Street Journal, The Nation, CNN, MSNBC, NPR.

Dr. Donna A. Patterson is chair of the Department of History, Political Science, and Philosophy at Delaware State University. She also directs their Africana Studies Program. Patterson is the author of Pharmacy in Senegal: Gender, Healing, and Entrepreneurship. Patterson is the inaugural editor of the new book series: Routledge Research in Health and Healing in Africa and the African Diaspora. Media includes: The Washington Post, Slate, Foreign Policy, Huffington Post, The Atlantic, Boston Globe, NPR.

Angela Peoples is an organizer, activist, political strategist, and social commentator working toward the liberation of all Black people. She is cofounder of The South with the goal of creating content that helps their audience live their politics, and to speak truth to power. The subject of the "Don't forget White Women Voted for Trump" viral photo, Peoples sees direct action and strategic storytelling as a platform for creative expression to engage uncomfortable truths. She is the Founder and Principal Strategist of MsPeoples, a progressive consulting group, and previously served as Campaigns Director for the Action Center on Race and the Economy. Media includes: The New York Times, The Hill, The Kojo Nnamdi Show.

Imani Perry is a Professor in the Center for African American Studies at Princeton University. She is an interdisciplinary scholar who studies race and African American culture using the tools provided by various disciplines including: law, literary and cultural studies, music, and the social sciences. She is the author of seven books, the latest released in January 2022 South to America is a narrative journey through the South, arguing that it is the nation’s heartland for better and worse. Perry has published numerous articles in the areas of law, cultural studies, and African American studies. Media includes: The New York Times, The Huffington Post, CNN.

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. In her critically acclaimed 1997 book, “Why Are All the Black Kids Sitting Together in the Cafeteria?” and Other Conversations about Race, she applies her expertise on race to argue that straight talk about racial identity is essential to the nation. Using real life examples and the latest research, she not only dispels race as taboo, but gives readers a new lens for understanding the emergence of racial identity as a developmental process experienced by everyone. For over 20 years, Dr. Tatum taught her signature course on the psychology of racism. She now serves as the Westside Future Fund Board Chair. Media includes: The Oprah Winfrey Show, The Washington Post, The New York Times, CNN.

A social scientist by training, Vanessa 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. 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, The Huffington Post, and The Bryan Callen Show, NPR.

Valerie Rawlston Wilson is director of the Economic Policy Institute’s Program on Race, Ethnicity, and the Economy (PREE), a nationally recognized source for expert reports and policy analyses on the economic condition of America’s people of color. Prior to joining EPI, Wilson was an economist and vice president of research at the National Urban League Washington Bureau. She has written extensively on various issues impacting economic inequality in the United States—including employment and training, income and wealth disparities, access to higher education, and social insurance. Media includes: Ebony, BET, NPR, Fox News.

Patricia J. Williams writes the monthly “Diary of a Mad Law Professor” for the Nation magazine. Her wry, witty columns cover broad issues of social justice, including the rhetoric of the war on terror, race, ethnicity, gender, all aspects of civil rights law, bioethics and eugenics, forensic uses of DNA, and comparative issues of class and culture in the US, France, and Britain. Williams is also the author of The Alchemy of Race and Rights and four other books. Patricia J. Williams is University Professor of Law and Philosophy, and director of Law, Technology and Ethics at Northeastern University.. She has served on the faculties of the University of Wisconsin School of Law, City University of New York Law School, and Golden Gate University School of Law and as the James L. Dohr Professor of Law at Columbia Law School among others. Media includes: USA Today, Harvard Law Review, Tikkun, The New York Times Book Review, The Nation, Ms. Magazine, BBC, NPR.

MiAngel Cody picks locks to human cages. As a lawyer, she is nationally recognized for her dedicated defense of men and women sentenced to life in federal prison. MiAngel has defended hundreds of people in federal court and won freedom for 40 prisoners sentenced to life in prison for drugs. Her victories include 6 successful commutations from the President of the United States. During her historic #90DaysOfFreedom Campaign, in three short months, MiAngel and her team won freedom for 17 federal prisoners unfairly sentenced to life without parole for drugs. Media includes: The New York Times, Politico, Chicago Tribune, The Hill, Salon, MSNBC, CNN, PBS.

Leah Goodridge is the Supervising Attorney of the Housing Project at Mobilization for Justice (formerly known as MFY Legal Services). She represents tenants in New York City Housing Court, New York State Supreme Court, the Appellate Division of New York State, the New York State Court of Appeals and federal courts. Goodridge's work includes litigating a case to strengthen the rights of relative caregivers in public housing and authoring an amicus brief in Matter of Marine Holdings LLC v. New York City Commission on Human Rights to support disability laws for tenants—both cases were heard at the New York State Court of Appeals. Media includes: City Limits, Manhattan Neighborhood Network.

Brandale Mills Cox recently published her book, Black Women Filmmakers and Black Love on Screen, which offers a definition of Black Love and an analysis of how it is portrayed from the perspective of a Black female filmmaker. She has presented her research at international and national conferences, with her scholarship including issues related to feminism, social media, racial politics, film, female representations in the mass media and popular culture. Her passion has also led her to her current role as founder and principal of Inclusive Market Research Group, a full-service research firm that specializes in inclusive and culturally sensitive market research, that help brands create communications strategies. As a Black American consumer insight expert, she provides cultural insight and direction for market strategy and planning using qualitative and quantitative research as a foundation. Extensive media experience.