Surgeon and professor Dr. Andre R. Campbell was born on May 5, 1958 in Queens, New York, to Ether Walker and Ronald Ivan Campbell. After graduating from Stuyvesant High School in New York City in 1976, he attended Harvard University, where he obtained his A.B. degree in biology in 1980. In 1985, he earned his M.D. degree from the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF).

In 1986, Campbell began his internal medicine residency at Columbian Presbyterian Medical Center, now named the NewYork-Presbyterian, Columbia University Medical Center. After completing his medical residency over a three-year period, he changed his specialization to general surgery. Campbell became the chief resident of general surgery in 1991, completed his residency in 1992, and then served as a surgical critical care fellow at NewYork-Presbyterian. In 1993, Campbell returned to his alma mater, the University of California, San Francisco, as a clinical instructor in the department of surgery. In 1994, he became an assistant professor of surgery before being promoted to associate professor in 2000. Six years later, he was promoted to professor of surgery. His clinical interests are surgical education, post-trauma lung injuries, ICU care of trauma patients, and abdominal compartment syndrome. During his career at UCSF, he served as the endowed chair of surgical education from 2003 to 2014. He also directed the third-year medical student undergraduate education program at UCSF hospitals and led the surgical critical care fellowship for over twenty years. In 2019, he was appointed the inaugural vice chair for diversity, equity, and inclusion in the department of surgery. Campbell has also served as an adjunct professor of surgery at Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences in Bethesda, Maryland.

In addition to his academic appointments, Campbell was an attending trauma surgeon at the Zuckerberg San Francisco General Hospital and Trauma Center beginning in 1993. He was also appointed medical director of San Francisco General Hospital’s ICU. From 2009 to 2013, Campbell served as an attending surgeon in the ICU of the San Francisco Veterans Administration Hospital.

Campbell held memberships in various surgical associations and societies. A founding board member of the Haile T. Debas Academy of Medical Educators in 2001, Campbell was elected Secretary of the Board of Governors Executive Committee of the American College of Surgeons in 2018. He also served on the American College of Surgeons Committee on Trauma for fifteen years, as well as on both the Central Committee and the Verification Review Committee for six years. In 2023, he became the president of the Society of Black Academic Surgeons. Campbell has also served as president of the Northern California Chapter of the American College of Surgeons; president of the UCSF Gold Headed Cane Society; president of the John Jones Surgical Society; honorary fellow in the Brazilian College of Surgeons; member of the American College of Surgeons Academy of Master Surgical Educators; and chair of the surgical section of the National Medical Association.

Campbell received numerous awards for his work in education and at hospitals, including the “Outstanding Teacher Award” from the Association for Surgical Education in 2003, the “Martin Luther King Jr. Award” from UCSF in 2010, and a “Certificate of Honor” from the San Francisco Board of Supervisors in 2011. November 2, 2023, was named “Dr. Andre Campbell Day” in San Francisco. In 2024, he was awarded the “Heart and Heroes Award” from San Francisco General Hospital, and in 2025, he received the Association for Surgical Education “Distinguished Master Surgical Educator Award.”

Campbell is married to Gillian Otway. He has one adult son and resides in San Francisco, California.

Dr. Andre R. Campbell was interviewed by The HistoryMakers on January 9, 2024.

Physicist and business executive Albert M. Green was born on July 29, 1965 to Natalia and Alberto Green in Englewood, New Jersey. He graduated from Blue Mountain Academy in Hamburg, Pennsylvania in 1983. He went on to earn his B.A. degree in physics from the University of Chicago in 1987. In 1994, he earned his Ph.D. degree in physics from Stanford University in Stanford, California.

After earning his Ph.D. degree, Green was hired as a research scientist with the Science Applications International Corporation in Washington D.C., where he worked for thirteen years in various positions including center director, vice president, and division manager of the applied sciences division. In 2007, Green became the chief executive officer of Kent Displays, Inc. in Kent, Ohio. While at Kent Displays, Green oversaw the manufacturing of the Boogie Board, an e-writing tablet. Green worked as an adjunct professor of chemical physics and the director of technology commercialization at Kent State University in 2008 and 2020, respectively. In 2019, Green founded AMG Consulting Group, a technology consulting firm. Then, he co-founded MATCorp, a business consulting nonprofit, in 2020, and he also served as chief technology officer and board member until 2024. After six years with AMG Consulting Group, Green joined QuantumCT, an economic development organization in New Haven, Connecticut, as president and CEO in 2025.

Green served as a council member for the Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland’s Business Advisory Council in 2011 and the Department of Commerce Manufacturing Council from 2012 to 2016, while also serving on the board of Notre Dame College in South Euclid, Ohio. In 2018, he joined as a member of the board of Kent State University Research Corporation.

Green has received numerous recognitions for the achievements in his career, which include a Black Engineer of the Year, Most Promising Scientist Award from the National Society of Black Engineers in 1997. In 2012, Green earned the Who's Who in Northeast Ohio distinction from Crain’s Cleveland Business. Then, in 2016, he was an Ernst & Young’s Entrepreneur of the Year, Northeast Ohio finalist.

Green and his wife, Sarah Kwon, have two children, Alexander and Blake Green. They reside in New Haven, Connecticut.

Albert M. Green was interviewed by The HistoryMakers on December 11, 2024.

Civil rights activist Reverend Dr. Amos C. Brown was born on February 20, 1941 in Jackson, Mississippi to Louella Bell Robinson Brown and Charles Daniel Brown. He earned his A.B. degree in sociology from Morehouse College in Atlanta, Georgia in 1964, his MDiv degree from Crozer Theological Seminary in Upland, Pennsylvania in 1968, and his Th.D. degree from the United Theological Seminary in Trotwood, Ohio in 1990.

Brown organized the NAACP Youth Council in Jackson, Mississippi in 1955. As the national chairman of the youth and college division of the NAACP in 1959, he also participated in the Freedom Rides of 1961 and worked as a youth field secretary for the NAACP in the South from 1962 to 1964. Following his graduation from Morehouse, Brown attended Operation Crossroads Africa in Senegal, Sierra Leone and Liberia. He also served as a pastor of Saint Paul’s Baptist Church in West Chester, Pennsylvania from 1966 to 1970 before joining Pilgrim Baptist Church in Saint Paul, Minnesota until 1976. Brown was the NAACP branch president in both West Chester and St. Paul during his tenure. Brown was hired by Third Baptist Church in San Francisco, California, where he remained until his retirement in 2025. He served on the San Francisco Board of Supervisors from 1996 to 2001 and became the president of the San Francisco NAACP.

Brown has received numerous awards and honors including the Martin Luther King, Jr. Ministerial Award in 1984. He was also named San Francisco Business and Professional Women Inc. “Man of the Year” in 1985. He was the recipient of the National Newspaper Publishers Association’s Torch Award in 2018 and the Willie B. Kennedy Civic Service Award from the Northern California Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Community Foundation in 2025. He was inducted into the California-Hawaii NAACP Hall of Fame in 2024 and the International Hall of Fame at the King International Chapel at Morehouse College.

Brown served as president of the Minnesota State Baptist Convention, USA from 1971 to 1974. He also served as national chairman of the National Baptist Commission on Civil Rights and Human Services; chairman of the Bay Area Ecumenical Pastors Conference; chairman of the Midwestern American Baptist Black Churchmen; and vice president of the governing board of San Francisco Community College. He went on to serve as a member of the NAACP national board; California Reparations Task Force; San Francisco African American Reparations Advisory Committee; governing board of the National Council of Churches of Christ; San Francisco Ministerial Alliance; San Francisco Religious Council; and Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity.

Brown and his wife, Jane, reside in San Francisco, California. They have three children: Kizzie, Amos Jr., and David.

Reverend Dr. Amos C. Brown was interviewed by The HistoryMakers on January 6, 2024 and June 13, 2025.

Linguist and anthropologist Arthur K. Spears was born on November 16, 1943 in Kansas City, Kansas to Charleszine and Mack Spears. He earned his B.A. degrees in French (Honors), Spanish, and political science from the University of Kansas in Lawrence, Kansas in 1965. As a Fulbright scholar from 1965 to 1966, he studied at the University of the Republic in Montevideo, Uruguay and the University of Chile in Santiago, Chile. In 1969, he earned his M.A. degree with distinction in international relations from John Hopkins University’s School of Advanced International Studies in Washington D.C. and an M.A. in linguistics from Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois. Spears earned his Ph.D. degree in linguistics from the University of California, San Diego in 1977.

Spears has worked as a contract interpreter in four languages: English (his native language), French (his second language, learned in early childhood), Spanish, and Portuguese. Certified as one of the few four-language interpreters by the United States Department of State, he has interpreted for the Department of State, the United States Agency for International Development, the African American Institute, Crossroads Africa, and other entities since 1967. He was hired as an adjunct professor of anthropology at San Diego State University in 1972 and went on to become a faculty member at the University of California, Santa Cruz in 1974. In 1983, he was hired by The City College of The City University of New York (CUNY).

In 1984 and 1985 respectively, he was appointed at the CUNY Graduate Center as a doctoral faculty member in the Anthropology and Linguistics Programs. During his thirty-three-year career with CUNY, Spears served as the acting director of the M.A. Program in Applied Urban Anthropology, exchange professor and resident director of the CUNY-University of Paris Exchange Program (1992-1993), director of the Black Studies Program at The City College (2007-2010), and acting chair and chair of the Council of Black Faculty and Staff. At the college, he was also acting chair of the Anthropology Department (2013-2014) and chair between 2002 and 2015. Spears was appointed presidential professor in 2013, becoming presidential professor emeritus after his retirement in 2016.

Spears was the president of the Society for Pidgin and Creole Linguistics from 2007 to 2009. In 1990, he was the founder and first editor, from 1990 to 1993, of Transforming Anthropology, the journal of the Association of Black Anthropologists, a section of the American Anthropological Association. He was on the editorial boards of the Journal of Pidgin and Creole Languages from 2007 to 2020, American Speech from 2005 to 2007, and CUNYForum beginning in 1991. Spears was an associate editor of Language, the journal of the Linguistic Society of America, from 2020 to 2022 and has served on the editorial board of the book series Oxford Studies in Language and Race since 2022.

Throughout his career, Spears has received numerous awards and honors, including a grant from the American Council of Learned Societies in 1982, a Scholars-in-Residence Fellowship from the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture in 1989, the Distinguished Service Award from the Association of Black Anthropologists in 1994, the Eisner Award from the Simon H. Rifkind Center for the Humanities and Arts at The City College in 2000, a Rockefeller Fellowship from the CUNY Institute for Research on the African Diaspora and the Caribbean in 2000, the Legacy Scholar Award from the Association of Black Anthropologists in 2013, and the Interdisciplinary Public Engagement Award from the Society for Linguistic Anthropology in 2018. In 2023, Spears was named as a fellow of the Linguistics Society of America.

Spears resides in New York, New York.

Arthur K. Spears was interviewed by The HistoryMakers on January 31, 2025 and May 13, 2025.

Gymnastics coach and former gymnast Wendy Hilliard was born in Detroit, Michigan to Gwendolyn and Stratford Hilliard. She graduated from Cass Technical High School in 1978. She went on to attend Wayne State University in Detroit, Michigan, where she studied communications. She earned her B.A. degree with honors in broadcast journalism from New York University in 1988.

In 1978, Hilliard was the first African American rhythmic gymnast to make the United States Rhythmic Gymnastics team. She went on to compete in the 1979, 1981, and 1983 Rhythmic Gymnastics World Championships. Then, Hilliard competed in the 1984 Olympic Trials before retiring from gymnastics in 1988. That same year, she was hired by the United Nations International School, where she worked as a gymnastics coach. She spent eight years with the school before she founded the Wendy Hilliard Gymnastics Foundation in 1996, which provides gymnastics programs in New York, New York and Detroit, Michigan. The Wendy Hilliard Gymnastics Foundation has served over 25,000 youth. In 1991, Hilliard co-founded Antigravity, a performance company, and she went on to perform in the Broadway production of Candide. Hilliard was also a gymnastics television broadcaster for numerous events, including the 1992 Olympic Games, for NBC. From 1995 to 1996, Hilliard served as the first African American president of the Women’s Sports Foundation. Then, in 1999, Hilliard served as the Director of Sports for NYC2012, a non-profit organization used to manage New York City’s 2012 Olympic bid. In 2006, Hilliard worked as the director of gymnastics and youth sports at Aviator Sports and Events Center in Brooklyn, New York. She went on to work as the New York City director of ‘GoGirlGo!’, a program of the Women’s Sports Foundation, from 2011 to 2012.

Hilliard served on the United States Olympic Committee Athletes' Advisory Council from 1992 to 1993. She also held various positions with USA Gymnastics such as Athletes' Council Chairperson, executive committee member, and Vice President of Rhythmic Gymnastics between 1988 and 2001.

Throughout her career, Hilliard received numerous awards and honors, which include an induction to the USA Gymnastics Hall of Fame in 2008. In 2011, she was the recipient of the Rings of Gold Award from the United States Olympic Committee and a Master of Sport Award, from USA Gymnastics, for coaching an Olympic athlete. She was inducted into the World Acrobatics Society Hall of Fame in 2021.

Hilliard and her husband, Robert Mensah, reside in New York, New York. They have two children: Kennedy and Bailey Mensah.

Wendy Hilliard was interviewed by The HistoryMakers on January 30, 2025.

Chef Gerry Garvin was born on September 28, 1966 in Atlanta, Georgia to Eleanor Garvin and Darrel Owens. He attended Morris Brandon Elementary, Sutton Middle School, and Northside High School in Atlanta, Georgia.

Garvin began his career at the Old Vinings Inn restaurant in Atlanta, Georgia at thirteen years old. He went on to become the youngest line cook in a gourmet dining room at the Ritz Carlton hotel in downtown Atlanta. Garvin moved to California, where he was hired by the Ritz Carlton- Rancho Mirage in Palm Springs. After several years in California, Garvin traveled to Europe, where he worked as an apprentice for Chef Jean Pierre Maharebacha in Warsaw, Poland and Hamburg, Germany. When he returned to the United States, Garvin was hired as a sous chef at Veni Vidi Vici in Atlanta.

Garvin then moved back to California and worked as a caterer for the Second Annual Vanity Fair party in 1995. In 1999, Garvin opened his first restaurant, Reign, with former NFL player Keyshawn Johnson, in Beverly Hills, California. He left Reign in 2000 and was hired to cater high profile events, including dinners for former President Bill Clinton and a brunch for former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. In 2001, Garvin opened his restaurant, G. Garvin’s, in Los Angeles, California with his business manager and minority partner, entrepreneur Fawn Weaver. In 2004, he was the host of his show Turn Up the Heat with G. Garvin on TV One, and in 2006, he published his first cookbook of the same name. In 2012, Garvin opened the first LowCountry restaurant, and in 2021, he opened LowCountry Steak in Atlanta. Garvin has served as the chief culinary advisor for SodexoMAGIC, a food service program founded by former NBA player Earvin “Magic” Johnson, and he has served as the chief culinary officer for the NBA’s Atlanta Hawks and the State Farm Arena as well as the Humble Baron restaurant in Shelbyville, Tennessee.

Throughout his career, Garvin received numerous awards and honors, which include an American Literacy Award and a NAACP Image Award nomination. In 2007, he was named Man of the Year by Women Moving Forward in Business. Garvin is also a James Beard Award nominee.

Garvin and his wife, Selam Welde, reside in Atlanta, Georgia. They have two children: Nola Mihaly-Garvin and Maxwell Garvin.

Gerry Garvin was interviewed by The HistoryMakers on January 17, 2025.

Chemist Robert G. Bayless was born on February 18, 1930 in West Mansfield, Ohio to Olivia Mae Hill and Harvey Sherman Bayless. He graduated from West Mansfield High School in 1948 before earning his B.S. degree in chemistry from Central State University in Wilberforce, Ohio in 1956. He went on to earn his M.S. degree in chemistry from the University of Cincinnati in Cincinnati, Ohio in 1962.

Before graduating college, Bayless worked at Wright Patterson Air Force Base in Green County, Ohio. After receiving an honorable discharge from the United States Army during the Korean War in 1953, Bayless was hired by Antioch College in Yellow Springs, Ohio, where he conducted hydrothermal research and studied crystal growth technology. After two years with Antioch College, he was hired as a chemist with the U.S. Industrial Chemical Company in Cincinnati, Ohio, where he invented a molecular weight distribution evaluation system and investigated polyethylene and polypropylene morphology. Then, in 1963, he became a research chemist with the NCR Corporation in Dayton, Ohio. As a research chemist, Bayless authored over a dozen patents in the field of microencapsulation, and he helped to develop carbonless copy paper and time released aspirin while working in NCR’s Capsular Products Division. After six years with NCR, Bayless became the chairman and CEO of Capsulated Systems Inc. in Yellow Springs, Ohio in 1973. During his seventeen years with the company, Bayless developed a microencapsulation system for mariculture feeds and developed a microencapsulated toner. He also invented a microencapsulated adhesive locking system for threaded fasteners. In 1990, he went on to found Bayless Enterprises, Inc. in Atlanta, Georgia, where he worked to further develop his microencapsulation research. That same year, he founded ENCAP Technologies, LLC, in Atlanta, Georgia, and he served as the company’s chairman and CTO in 2001 before his retirement in 2017.

Bayless received an honorary degree in Switzerland in 1997.

Bayless and his wife, Edna May Bayless, reside in Canton, Georgia. They have three children: Marvin LeRoy Bayless, Edward Dean Bayless, and Alaine Jercel Bayless. They also have five grandchildren.

Robert G. Bayless was interviewed by The HistoryMakers on January 13, 2025.

Photographer Marilyn Nance was born in New York, New York, on November 12, 1953 to Savannah Franklin Nance and Charles Leroy Nance. She received her B.F.A. degree in communications graphic design from the Pratt Institute in New York City in 1976, her M.F.A. degree in photography from the Maryland Institute College of Arts in Baltimore in 1996, and her M.P.S. degree in interactive art and technology from the Interactive Telecommunications Program (ITP) at New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts in 1999.

After graduating from the Pratt Institute, Nance served as a photographer for the North American contingent at the Second World Black and African Festival of Arts and Culture (FESTAC) in Lagos, Nigeria, in 1977. Following FESTAC, Nance continued to work as a photographer in various locations including New Orleans, Louisiana, the Oyotunji African Village in Sheldon, South Carolina, and carnivals in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. She worked as a curator for the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture at the New York Public Library in 1997, where she curated and digitized images of African American people of the 19th century. In 1998, Nance began her project “Spirit, Faith, Grace, Rage: African Spiritual Culture in the United States.”

Throughout her career, Nance received numerous fellowships and grants including the New York State Arts Council Individual Artists Grant in 1987, the New York Foundation for the Arts (NYFA) fellowship in photography in 1989 and 2000, and the NYFA fellowship in nonfiction literature in 1993. Nance published her book about FESTAC, Marilyn Nance: Last Day in Lagos, with Fourthwall Books Publishing in 2022. Nance’s work has appeared in numerous museums and collections including the Art Institute of Chicago, the Brooklyn Museum of Art, the Library of Congress, the Modern Museum of Art, the Museum of Fine Arts Houston, the Smithsonian American Art Museum, and the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts. Nance’s work was also featured in numerous magazines such as Essence, Life, The New York Times, NY Newsday, and The Village Voice as well as in Naomi Rosenblum’s A World History of Photography in 1984 and A History of Women Photographers in 1994.

Nance was a finalist for the W. Eugene Smith Award in Humanistic Photography in 1991 and 1993. She also received a recognition as a community folklore scholar from the Smithsonian Institution Center for Folklore Programs and Cultural Studies and an honorary fellowship in recognition of a significant personal achievement in photography from the Royal Photographic Society in 2024. In addition, Nance served as a member of The Santana Group, an interdisciplinary artist collective.

Marilyn Nance was interviewed by The HistoryMakers on February 14, 2023 and January 29, 2025.

Television reporter and producer Bonnie Boswell Hamilton was born on October 6, 1951 to Arnita Young Boswell and William Yancy Bell, Jr. in New York, New York. She attended Tufts University in Medford, Massachusetts before receiving her B.A. degree in anthropology from Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts in 1972. She went on to earn her M.A. degree in city, urban, community and regional planning from Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge, Massachusetts in 1975.

Boswell joined WNBC-TV as a broadcast editorialist in 1976. In 1995, she was hired as the co-host of Lawson Live with civil rights leader James M. Lawson, Jr. Then, in 1997, Boswell began producing Positively Black, one of the earliest TV programs dedicated to Black issues in the United States and one of the longest-running WNBC Television programs. In 1998, she was hired as an associate producer for ABC News’ 20/20 and Primetime. Boswell became a television news reporter for WCMH-TV (NBC4) in 2012. The following year, Boswell was the executive producer and co-writer of The Powerbroker: Whitney Young’s Fight for Civil Rights, a PBS documentary on the life of her uncle, civil rights activist Whitney Young. She then became an executive producer and reporter for PBS SoCal in Los Angeles, California in 2016. With PBS, Boswell created the Bonnie Boswell Reports series, where she covered topics related to life in Los Angeles, California.

Boswell has served on the Roberts Enterprise Development Fund (REDF) board since 2016. She is also a board member of Community Partners, Lightcast, and The Academy of Television Arts and Sciences. Boswell delivered two TEDx Talks at the TEDxLAWomen and TEDxOrangeCoast conferences.

Boswell has received numerous honors for her achievements, including an LA Emmy Award for her “Saving Mom” documentary special episode of the Bonnie Boswell Reports in 2024. “Saving Mom” was additionally awarded a Best Feature Award from the LA Press Club. Boswell was honored with the Best News Special for “Seeds of Peace” by the Golden Mike Awards, an Excellence in Media Award from Black Enterprise, and a Public Broadcasting Award for Senior Producers by The Corporation for Public Broadcasting.

Boswell and her husband, William Roderick “Rod” Hamilton, live in Los Angeles, California. They have two children: Taylor Whitney Hamilton and Evan Boswell Hamilton.

Bonnie Boswell Hamilton was interviewed by The HistoryMakers on January 28, 2025.

Media commentator, entrepreneur and activist Van Jones was born on September 20, 1968 to Loretta Jean Kirkendoll and Willie Anthony Jones in Jackson, Tennessee. He received his B.S. degree in communications and politics from the University of Tennessee at Martin in 1990 and his J.D. degree from Yale Law School in New Haven, Connecticut in 1993.

Jones established the Bay Area PoliceWatch in 1995 and the Ella Baker Center for Human Rights in 1996. In 2003, he served as the statewide grassroots director for Ariana Huffington in the California gubernatorial recall election. Then, in 2006, Jones and James Rucker co-founded Color of Change. He launched the Green for All NGO in 2007 and championed the 2007 Green Jobs Act. In 2008, he helped establish a “Green Jobs Corps in Oakland.” Under the Obama Administration, Jones served as the special advisor for Green Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation at the White House Council on Environmental Quality. He went on to become a senior fellow at the Center for American Progress and received appointments at Princeton University as a distinguished visiting fellow in the Center for African American Studies and in the Program in Science, Technology and Environmental Policy at the School of Public and International Affairs, in 2010. He founded the Rebuild the Dream non-profit in 2011 and Dream Corps (now known as Dream.org) in 2014. Jones also launched the #YesWeCode and #cut50 initiatives in 2015. He co-founded the Advocates for Opioid Recovery with former Rep. Patrick J. Kennedy and former House Speaker Newt Gingrich in 2016. In 2018, Jones helped pass the FIRST STEP act. He joined the leadership of The B Team non-profit in 2021, and in 2023, Jones became the founder and CEO of the Dream Machine Innovation Lab.

In 2012, Jones was hired as a host and correspondent for CNN. The following year, Jones co-hosted CNN’s Crossfire with Newt Gingrich, Stephanie Cutter, and S.E. Cupp. He launched The Messy Truth in 2016 and The Messy Truth with Van Jones in 2017 on CNN. The Van Jones Show on CNN began airing in 2018. Jones created The Redemption Project with Van Jones in 2019 and co-founded Rapport.Co with Tadzio Smith in 2022. Jones is the author of several books including The Green Collar Economy, Rebuild the Dream, and Beyond the Messy Truth.

Jones joined the Environmental Media Association board in 2015 and the JPB Foundation (now the Freedom Together Foundation) board in 2017. He became a member of the Perelman Performing Arts Center board in 2021.

Jones has received numerous awards for his accomplishments including a Webby Award for The Messy Truth and an Emmy Award for The Messy Truth VR Experience with Van Jones. In 2022, Jones was the first recipient of Jeff Bezos’ Courage & Civility Award.

Jones currently resides in Los Angeles, California. He has four children, Cabral and Mattai Carter and Zenani and Neo Zamacona.

Van Jones was interviewed by The HistoryMakers on January 31, 2025.