Linda Foard Roberts (b. 1961) makes work that is deeply personal, rooted in memory, family and local histories, and combined with philosophical inquiries about life, death, and basic human rights. Roberts is a recipient of a 2020 Guggenheim Fellowship in support of her project Lament, a song of sorrow for those not heard. Preferring the imperfections of old lenses and the history inherent within them, her work is metaphorical and layered, intending to cross language and cultural barriers. Posing the environment as a reflection of ourselves, her photographs engage the transformative cycles that shape our lives, bound by time and what it means to be human, a foundation upon which we can all find common ground. Her work has been exhibited across the United States and internationally, at venues in Australia, Guatemala, Argentina, and Germany. Roberts is a recipient of a 2020 Guggenheim Fellowship in support of her project Lament; photographs from this series are in the collections of The Mint Museum, Charlotte, NC and The Columbus Museum, GA. She is represented by SOCO Gallery in North Carolina and Sol del RIO in Guatemala. Roberts lives and works in Charlotte, North Carolina. 

Michelle Lanier (b. 1975) is on the faculty at the Center for Documentary Studies at Duke University. She is the Director of North Carolina's Historic Sites, which is 26 museum spaces, historic structures, and Civil War-era battlefields, former plantation spaces, and an 18th-century gold mine. Her film, Mossville, reveals a global south story of resistance to environmental racism, has been translated into five languages, screened on six continents, and chosen by the United Nations in an effort to raise awareness about the climate crisis and its impact on the lives of people of African descent. 

Jennifer Sudul Edwards, Ph.D (b. 1970) is the Chief Curator and Curator of Contemporary Art at the Mint Museum in Charlotte, NC. Prior to the Mint, she held curatorial positions at the Norton Simon Museum, Santa Barbara Museum of Art, Bechtler Museum of Modern Art, and the Annenberg Space for Photography.

Cheryl Finley, Ph.D (b. 1964) is an art historian, curator, and contemporary art critic. She is an Associate Professor in the Department of the History of Art & Visual Studies at Cornell University. Her research explores historic and contemporary images of the transatlantic slave trade; she has contributed essays and reviews to numerous magazines and published the award-winning book Committed to Memory: The Art of the Slave Ship Icon in 2018.

E. Ethelbert Miller (b. 1950) is an African American poet, teacher, and literary activist based in Washington, DC. He is the author of several collections of poetry and two memoirs, the editor of Poet Lore magazine, and the host of weekly WPFW radio show On the Margin.

Henry Louis Gates, Jr., Ph.D (b. 1950) is the Alphonse Fletcher University Professor and Director of the Hutchins Center for African & African American Research at Harvard University. Emmy and Peabody Award-winning filmmaker, literary scholar, journalist, cultural critic, and institution builder, Professor Gates has published numerous books and produced and hosted an array of documentary films.