Mia E. Bay is professor of history at Rutgers University.
Robert G. O'Meally is Zora Neale Hurston Professor of American Literature at Columbia University. He is the author of numerous books, including The Jazz Cadence of American Cultureand Lady Day: The Many Faces of Billie Holiday.Brent Hayes Edwards is an associate professor of English at Rutgers University and the author of The Practice of Diaspora: Literature, Translation, and the Rise of Black Internationalism.Farah Jasmine Griffin is a professor of English, comparative literature, and African American studies at Columbia University. She is the author of If You Can't Be Free, Be a Mystery: In Search of Billie Holiday.
Roy Morris, Jr., is the author of numerous books, including Lighting Out for the Territory: How Samuel Clemens Headed West and Became Mark Twain.Barbara Dianne Savage is Geraldine R. Segal Professor of American Social Thought and Professor of History, University of Pennsylvania.