President and CEO

Fatima Goss Graves is Senior Vice President for Program, where she leads the Center's broad program agenda to eliminate barriers in employment, education, health and reproductive rights and lift women and families out of poverty. Prior to being named Senior Vice President, Ms. Goss Graves led the Center's anti-discrimination initiatives, including work to promote equal pay, combat harassment and sexual assault at work and at school, and advance equal access to education programs, with a particular focus on outcomes for women and girls of color. Media includes: The Washington Post, USA Today, NPR, CNN, CNBC, and CSPAN (Washington Journal).

Writer, Editor, Researcher

In 2010, T.F. Charlton founded Are Women Human? to bring an antiracist and queer feminist perspective to critiques of misogyny in U.S. Evangelical Christianity and voice to the black experience. As a writer, editor, and researcher, she focuses on the intersections of race, gender, and sexuality in American culture. Her work has been featured in The Guardian, Salon, Religion Dispatches, R.H. Reality Check, Ebony.com, and many other outlets.

Political Strategist, Community Organizer & Author

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. She has facilitated and developed political trainings for organizations including the NAACP, the Center for Progressive Leadership, Young People For and Wellstone Action. Media includes: NPR, MSNBC, BBC World News, NBC, and WGN TV.

Dean, School of Communications

Jannette Dates is dean emerita of the School of Communications at Howard University and is a nationally recognized authority on the issues of mass media and the depiction of African Americans in popular culture. She co-edited the book, "Split Image: African Americans in the Mass Media," and is regularly interviewed as an expert on the depiction of African Americans in the media. She has appeared on CSPAN, ABC, NPR, BET and other media outlets.

Independent Scholar and Entrepreneur

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 Pop Culture can be found in The Paradox of Loyalty: An African American Response to the War on Terror by Third World Press.

President emeritus

Wendy Puriefoy has been the President of Public Education Network, the nations largest community-based school reform organizations, since 1991. She is a nationally-recognized expert on issues of school reform and civil society. Puriefoy has been deeply involved in school reform since the 1970’s when she served as a special monitor of the court-ordered desegregation plan for Boston’s public schools. She serves on the board of many high-profile national organizations including Children’s Defense Fund, Demos, Learning Matters Inc, and the National Center for Family Philanthropy. Puriefoy formerly served on the boards of FairTest, Hasbro Children’s Foundation, Jobs for the Future, Local Initiatives Support Corporation (LISC), Milton Hershey School, Ms. Foundation for Women, The Pew Forum on Standards-Based Reform, Women and Philanthropy, the National Charities Information Bureau, the Council on Foundations, Teach for America, Children’s Express, Hobart and William Smith Colleges, and the Boston Annenberg Challenge.

CEO & President

Melanie L. Campbell serves as the CEO and Executive Director of National Coalition on Black Civic Participation, Inc. She has a strong knowledge base in Black voter participation, civil rights, voting rights, women's rights, election reform and is passionate about issues impacting African Americans, women, immigrants and youth. Media includes: CNN Paula Zahn, Washington Journal (C-SPAN), National Public Radio, Tom Joyner Morning Show, Bev Smith Show, XM Radio, Pacifica Radio, and BET.

Professor of Political Science

Dr. Christina M. Greer is an assistant professor of political science at Fordham University - Lincoln Center. Dr. Greer is the author of Black Ethnics: Race, Immigration, and the Pursuit of the American Dream (Oxford University Press) and is currently conducting research on the history of the roughly sixty African American candidates for the executive office in the U.S. from 1872-2008. She has provided political commentary to The New York Times, Reuters, NBC Nightly News, Fox, ABC Television, Fox 5 Good Day, and WFUV.

Trial Lawyer, former prosecutor and Assistant Attorney General for MD Member, Supreme Court Bar

Debbie Hines often addresses legal issues at the intersection of race and crime as a Washington, D.C. based practicing attorney. She is a former Maryland prosecutor and member of the Supreme Court bar, who is an expert in criminal law, high profile criminal cases, gun laws, death penalty cases and voting laws. Debbie frequently appears in the media as a legal commentator and guest host addressing high profile legal cases and various legal issues on C-SPAN, the Michael Eric Dyson show, the CBS, NBC, Fox 5 News, and ABC Washington, D.C. TV affiliates, CBC-Canadian, RT America TV, Pacifica and Sirius XM radio.

Professor in Studies of Women, Gender, and Sexuality, and in African and African American Studies

Imani Perry is a Professor in the Center for African American Studies at Princeton University. She is the author of More Terrible, More Beautiful, The Embrace and Transcendence of Racial Inequality in the U.S. and Prophets of the Hood: Politics and Poetics in Hip Hop and has published numerous articles in law, culture studies, and African American studies. She studies race and African American culture using tools provided by various disciplines including: law, literary, and culture studies, music, and the social sciences.

Activist. Public Intellectual. Academic.

Loretta June Ross is a co-founder and the former National Coordinator of the SisterSong Women of Color Reproductive Health Collective. She is the co-author of Undivided Rights: Women of Color Organize for Reproductive Justice and author of "The Color of Choice" chapter in Incitel Women of Color Against Violence published in 2006. In 2004, Ms. Ross was the National Co-Director of the March for Women's Lives in Washington, D.C., the largest protest march in U.S. history with more than one million participants. Her media include: CNN, ABC, BET, The New York Times, and Washington Post.

Professor of English

Koritha Mitchell is an associate professor of English at Ohio State University. Her research focuses on African American literature, racial violence in the U.S. history and contemporary culture, and black drama and performance. She earned her PhD at the University of Maryland-College Park and is author of the award-winning book Living with Lynching: African American Lynching Plays, Performance, and Citizenship, 1890 - 1930. Media includes: WBNS-10TV, PBS, Colorlines.com, and Michael Eric Dyson radio show.

Founder & Chief Visionary Officer

A converted management consultant, economic fellow, and economic development director Natalie Madeira Cofield currently serves as the Founder & Chief Visionary Officer of Urban Co-Lab. Previously, she was the President and CEO of the of the Greater Austin Black Chamber of Commerce where she is also the founding President of the Austin Black Technology Council. She has worked to establish Austin as a hub for minorities in technology through aggressive outreach campaigns and cultivation of strong relationships within the Austin technology eco-system. Media includes: Forbes, C-Span, Black Enterprise, KVUE (NBC Austin), Forbes, and BusinessInsider.

Writer, Social Media Strategist, Activist

For 9 years, Lovette-Luvvie-Ajayi has been blogging as a writer and social media strategist. She founded The Red Pump Project with Karyn Watkins in 2009, a national non profit to raise awareness about the impact of HIV/AIDS on women and girls. Red Pump has been featured in The Huffington Post, Ebony Magazine, The Chicago SunTimes, NBC and many other outlets.

Professor, Author, Journalist

Kristal Brent Zook, Ph.D. is as associate professor of journalism at Hofstra University. She is the author of three books, which include I See Black People: Interviews with African American Owners of Radio and Television; and Black Women's Lives: Stories of Power and Pain. She speaks regularly on popular culture and gender, multiracial identity, blackness, and social justice issues involving, health, the environment and criminal justice. Her media experiences include: NPR, CNN, MSNBC, C-SPAN, MTV, Fox, TV-One, New York Times, and Washington Post.

Clinical Assistant Professor

Marcia Alesan Dawkins, Ph.D. is a communication professor at USC Annenberg in Los Angeles, an award-winning author, and leading authority on how diversity, technology, and creative storytelling and changing everything. In 2012, her book, Clearly Invisible: Racial Passing and the Color of Cultural Identity, released to rave reviews. The most notable among these was from Valeria Jarrett, Senior Advisor to the President. Media includes: Google, NPR, WABC-TV, TIME Magazine, The New York Times, and Huffington Post Live.

Janus Adams is an Emmy Award-winning journalist, author/historian, talk show host, publisher/producer, and the creator 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. Her master’s is the nation’s first graduate degree in Black Studies. Media includes: ABC, AirAmerica, BET, CNN, NBC, NPR.

Director of Campaigns

February is Black History Month and to commemorate, we FEATURE Celeste Faison. Celeste 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. She also worked at the League of Young Voters where she developed trainings and curricula. Media includes: KPFS, NBC News, AlterNet, USA Today, San Francisco Bay View, Tides Blog, Metroactive Music.