Mark Anthony Neal is Professor of Black Popular Culture in the Department of African and African-American Studies at Duke University. Neal is the author of four books, What the Music Said: Black Popular Music and Black Public Culture (1998), Soul Babies: Black Popular Culture and the Post-Soul Aesthetic (2002), Songs in the Keys of Black Life: A Rhythm and Blues Nation (2003) and New Black Man: Rethinking Black Masculinity (2005).

Mumia Abu-Jamal is a journalist, author and political activist who has been imprisoned in Pennsylvania since 1982, when he was convicted of murdering a Philadelphia police officer in a controversial trial in which he and others declared his innocence.

Harry Amana is professor emeritus at the School of Journalism and Mass Communication at The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, where he taught for 28 years. He also is an adjunct professor at Temple University. He can be reached at harryamana@gmail.com. He can be reached at harryamana(at)gmail.com.

A Brooklyn-based writer and photographer, Carrillo specializes in covering African American and Afro-Latino history, culture and politics. She has worked as a journalist for more than 15 years, and presented lectures on African American and Afro-Latino issues. Her published articles and photographs have been featured in numerous publications in the United States, South America and Europe.

Photo by Jesko von Dessauer.

Charles studied at Smith College where she was awarded the Mellon Mays Undergraduate Fellowship. As a fellow, she explored transgenerational mourning and remembrance in the literature of the African Diaspora. Currently, she has hopes of filling several medium-sized spiral notebooks to reflect her cultural inquires. Art journalism has allowed her to explore the depth and authority behind what appears understated in visual media.

Carol Chastang is a writer based in Bowie, Md. Born and raised in Los Angeles, she wrote about education and the arts for the Los Angeles Times, and has also written for Modern Maturity magazine and The World Tribune, a weekly newspaper published by the SGI-USA, an American Buddhist association. She also works as a spokesperson for the U.S. Small Business Administration.

Fofana is a writer, poet, and emcee. He serves as associate editor at Allhiphop.com and contributing writer for the Source magazine. He graduated from Columbia University in 2005, with a BA in English. He currently lives in Harlem, N.Y.

Robin D. G. Kelley, professor of history and Africana studies at the University of Southern California, is a writer completing a biography of Thelonious Monk. His most recent book is Freedom Dreams: The Black Radical Imagination (Beacon Press 2002).

Charlene Muhammad, MS is a clinical herbalist, doula, early childhood educator and mother of two dynamic sons. She practices in the Baltimore-DC area.

Makani Themba-Nixon is executive director of The Praxis Project, a nonprofit organization helping communities use media and policy advocacy to advance equity and social justice. A long time organizer and nationally renowned trainer, Makani has published numerous articles and case studies on race, media and policy advocacy.