Meet the authors

Biography contributor

Nadine Cohodas

Graphic memoir contributor

Nate Powell

Photo by SWinxy · CC BY 4.0 · cropped

Fiction writer

Nella Larsen

Poet and educator

Nikky Finney

Kentucky · Lexington

Photo by Soppakanuuna · CC BY-SA 3.0 · cropped

History writer

Nikole Hannah-Jones

Photo by Alice Vergueiro / Abraji (cropped in source) · CC BY 2.0 · cropped

Speculative fiction writer

Octavia E. Butler

Photo by Nikolas Coukouma · CC BY-SA 2.5 · cropped

Music writer

Peter Guralnick

Music writer

Preston Lauterbach

Essayist

Questlove

Photo by Bryan Berlin · CC BY-SA 4.0 · cropped

Memoir contributor

Quincy Troupe

Photo by New York Amsterdam News (cropped in source) · Public domain · cropped

Novelist and essayist

Ralph Ellison

Photo by United States Information Agency staff photographer · Public domain · cropped

Biography contributor

Rebecca Skloot

Photo by Larry D. Moore · CC BY 4.0 · cropped

Music writer

Robert Gordon

Picture book contributor

Roda Ahmed

History writer

Ronald E. Butchart

Literary scholar

Rudine Sims Bishop

Biography contributor

Terry Teachout

Photo by Terry Teachout · CC BY-SA 4.0 · cropped

Novelist and editor

Toni Morrison

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Oral history contributor

Tracy E. K'Meyer

Kentucky

Biography contributor

Vashti Harrison

Photo by Larry D. Moore · CC BY 4.0 · cropped

Folklore contributor

Virginia Hamilton

Historian and sociologist

W. E. B. Du Bois

Photo by James E. Purdy / Smithsonian National Portrait Gallery (cropped in source) · Public domain · cropped

History writer

Waldo E. Martin Jr.

Photo by San Francisco Public Library (video still) · CC BY 3.0 · cropped

Memoir contributor

Warren Ellis

Photo by Bageensky · CC BY-SA 4.0 · cropped