Poet Opal Moore was born on June 30, 1953 in Chicago, Illinois to Thelma and Henry Whiteurst. She graduated from Thorton Township High School, in Harvey, Illinois, in 1970. She earned her B.F.A. degree in fine art from Illinois Wesleyan University in Bloomington, Illinois in 1974, before earning her M.A. and M.A.F. degrees in fine art and creative writing from the University of Iowa in Iowa City, Iowa in 1981 and 1982, respectively.

In 1987, Moore was hired as an assistant professor at Radford University in Radford, Virginia, where she taught creative writing and African American literature. In 1988, her poems “Freeing Ourselves of History: The Slave Closet” and “A Poem: For Free” were published in Obsidian IICallaloo Magazine. In 2004, her poem “Eulogy for Sister” was published by the Furious Flower Poetry Center, and in 2011, her article, “Redefining the art of poetry,” was published in The Cambridge History of African American Literature.

In the summer of 1992, Moore was hired as a visiting lecturer at Kassel University in Kassel, Hessen, Germany. She continued teaching creative writing there until she was hired as a visiting professor at Virginia Commonwealth University in Richmond, Virginia. In 1993, Moore left Virginia Commonwealth University and was awarded a Fulbright Scholarship and taught at the University of Mainz in Mainz, Rhineland Palatinate, Germany. In 1995, Moore was hired as a visiting professor at Hollin College in Roanoke, Virginia where she taught until 1997. In 1995. She received the Dupont Scholar Award from Hollins College and that same year, her short story “The Fence” was published in African American Review; and she joined the Furious Flower Poetry Center board of directors. In 1997, Moore joined the English department faculty at Spelman College in Atlanta, Georgia where, in 2013, she became the director of the honors program. She remained at Spelman until 2017.

Moore married her husband, Earl F. Picard, on March 15, 2005. They reside in Atlanta, Georgia.

Opal Moore was interviewed by The HistoryMakers on June 18, 2024.

Healthcare executive Suzet McKinney was born on January 16, 1973 in Chicago, Illinois to Marilyn and Tom Montgomery. She grew up on Chicago’s south side and graduated from Whitney Young High School in 1991. She earned her B.A. degree in biology from Brandeis University in Chicago, Illinois in 1996. In 2001, she graduated with her M.P.H. degree in healthcare administration and managed care from Benedictine University in Lisle, Illinois. Then, she received her DrPH degree from the University of Illinois at Chicago in 2009.

McKinney began her career in 1996 as a social worker and case manager at the Firman Community Services agency. In 1999, she joined Thresholds as the director of its parenting teens program. In 2002, after the City of Chicago’s Office of Public Health Emergency Preparedness was established, McKinney became the Chicago Department of Public Health’s preparedness and emergency response regional coordinator. The following year, she was promoted to manager of the health alert network. In 2005, she became the Chicago Department of Public Health’s preparedness and emergency response director of planning, research, and development. During the 2009 H1N1 outbreak, McKinney led the operational response in her role at The Chicago Department of Public Health. She also led the Chicago Department of Health’s response to the Haiti earthquake in 2010. In 2011, McKinney left Chicago and moved to Washinton D.C. to work for the Tauri Group where she provided strategic and analytical consulting services to the U.S. Department of Homeland Security’s BioWatch program. After she left the Tauri Group in 2012, McKinney led the City of Chicago’s response to the Ebola crisis from 2013 to 2016.

In 2018 and 2019, McKinney was named one of Chicago’s Notable Women in Healthcare. That same year, she co-authored Public Health Emergency Preparedness: Practical Solutions for the Real World with Mary Elise Papke. During the outbreak of COVID-19 in 2020, McKinney was appointed by Illinois governor J.B. Pritzker as operations lead for the State of Illinois alternative care facilities. In 2021, she became the director of life science at Sterling Bay. In 2023, McKinney presented a Ted Talk titled, “Want Better Health and Better Lives? Think Life Science.”

Suzet McKinney and her husband, Martin McKinney, have a daughter, Joia McKinney. McKinney resides in Chicago, Illinois.

Suzet McKinney was interviewed by The HistoryMakers on May 24, 2024.

Cultural heritage educator Michelle Duster was born on December 20, 1963, to civic leader and educator Maxine Duster and Donald L. Duster in Chicago, Illinois. She is the niece of sociology professor Troy Duster. She earned her B.A. degree in psychology in 1985 from Dartmouth College in Hanover, New Hampshire. In 1987, Duster completed coursework for the film and video production M.F.A. program at Columbia College Chicago. She then went on to earn her M.A. degree in media studies in 1997 from The New School in New York, New York. Duster is the great granddaughter of journalist and activist Ida B. Wells.

In 1988 and 1989, Duster worked with filmmaker William Greaves on his documentary Ida B. Wells: A Passion for Justice, which received several awards including First Place Documentary Award from the Black Filmmakers Hall of Fame, the Silver Apple at the National Educational Film and Video Festival, and the Silver Plaque at the Chicago International Film Festival. In 1993, Duster worked with Kathe Sandler on her documentary titled A Question of Color about colorism, its impact on the beauty standard, and its effects on the Black community.

In 1990, Duster moved to New York City, where she worked for the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture and the advertising agency Jordan, McGrath, Case & Taylor before joining Liberty Brokerage Investment Corporation in 1997. Duster wrote a biography about her grandmother, Alfreda Duster, entitled Women for Building Chicago 1790-1990, which was published in 2001. After returning to Chicago, she worked in marketing communications for several institutions including Motorola, Van Kampen Investments, and Harris Bank. In 2008, Duster edited her first anthology of Ida B. Wells writing called Ida in Her Own Words. That same year, Duster joined the Ida B. Wells Commemorative Art Committee, which commissioned the Ida B. Wells National Monument. She served as the secretary for the Chicago Women’s History Center. In 2010, Duster edited her second anthology of Ida B. Wells’ writing called Ida from Abroad. In 2013, after the passing of her father, Duster and her brothers assumed leadership of the Ida B. Wells Memorial Foundation. In 2015, Duster became an adjunct professor in the Business and Entrepreneurship Department at Columbia College Chicago. In 2021, Duster’s biography of Ida B. Wells entitled, Ida B. the Queen was published, followed by her children’s book Ida B. Wells, Voice of Truth in 2022. In 2022, Duster spoke at the U.S. White House alongside President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris for the signing of the Emmett Till Anti-Lynching Act.

Duster serves on the boards of numerous organizations including the Women’s Suffrage National Monument Foundation, the National Public Housing Museum, and the Chicago Literary Hall of Fame. Duster received the Multi-Generational Activist Award from the Illinois Human Rights Commission and the Ripple Effect Award from Public Narrative in 2022.

Duster resides in Chicago, Illinois.

Michelle Duster was interviewed by The HistoryMakers on May 23, 2024.

Photographer Shawn W. Walker was born on November 26, 1940 in the Harlem neighborhood of New York, New York to Florine Walker and William Fletcher. In 1949, he was first introduced to photography through his uncle who was an avid photographer. He later enrolled in Benjamin Franklin High School in 1954 where he majored in photography. He earned his B.A. degree in photography from Empire State College in New York, New York in 1980.

In 1960, Walker started documenting life on his block, 117th Street, and the Harlem neighborhood. That work led to his “Drug” series which examined the drug problems in Harlem and was featured in an Essence Magazine exposé in 1970. This series inspired other series, including his longest-running Parade Series. A photographer for HARYOU-ACT, in 1963, Walker was hired by the Harlem Daily, a community newspaper, as a photographer. That same year, he was invited to become a founding member of Kamoinge, a black photography collective that included Roy DeCarava, Herbert Randall, Ray Francis, and ten other photographers. In 1965, Walker joined the Third World Newsreel as a founding member and travelled internationally, including to places like Cuba, where he worked as a cinematographer and photographer for the organization. Walker travelled to Guyana in 1972; and, in 1973, Walker’s photographs were featured in Kamoinge’s magazine, Black Photographers Annual.

After teaching in various community programs, Walker began teaching at Teacher’s College in New York City in the late 1950s. Walker also taught at CW Post in Long Island, New York, City University of New York (CUNY) York College, CUNY Queensborough Community College, the International Center for Photography, Pratt University, CUNY Borough of Manhattan Community College, and CUNY City College, where he taught for twenty-five years. In 2012, Walker joined the United Federation of Teachers.

During his career, Walker’s photography has been featured in numerous exhibits nationally and internationally from the late 1960s to the present. These included “Shadow, Dreams and Manifestations” at the Cinque Gallery and “There is a World Through Our Eyes” at the Rockland State Museum in 1993. That same year, Walker’s art was displayed in the Baobab Center in Rochester, New York and Calumet Gallery in New York, New York. In 2018, the Steven Kasher Gallery featured Walker’s work in his first solo exhibition. Then, the Bruce Silverstein gallery featured Walker in an exhibition entitled Lost and Found. Other venues that have displayed Walker’s work include The Smithsonian Institute, Vassar College, the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, the International Center for Photography, the 12th World Festival of Youth and Students in Moscow, the Whitney Museum, the Getty Museum, and the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts. Walker’s work is also collected at the Library of Congress and the Museum of Modern Art. He was a two-time recipient of the New York Foundation for the Arts grant.

Walker resides in Harlem in New York, New York.

Shawn W. Walker was interviewed by The HistoryMakers on February 16, 2024.

Architect Roland “Ron” Bedford was born on February 8, 1938 in St. Louis, Missouri to Mae Olivia Bedford and Frank Bedford. The eldest of six children, Bedford was raised by his mother. In 1954, at the age of sixteen, Bedford joined the U.S. Air Force, where he trained as a combat medic and was stationed in England until 1957. Upon returning to the United States, he became involved with the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) in 1958 and the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) in 1964. Bedford then attended the Boston Architectural College from 1965 to 1967. He then enrolled at Yale University’s School of Architecture in 1968 and graduated in 1970, completing both his B.Arch. and M.Arch. degrees in two years.

In 1970, he taught at the University of Pennsylvania as an assistant professor of architecture and served as the director of the Urban Workshop. From 1971 to 1975, Bedford worked as an associate at Don Stull and Associates in Boston, Massachusetts, where he collaborated on the construction of the Harriet Tubman House in 1975. In 1983, he was hired as the chief architect for the California Housing Finance Agency. In 1986, Bedford served as the director of the Bureau of Housing Management in Boston, where he was responsible for the management of the public housing development program for families, the elderly, and the disabled.

In 1987, Bedford worked as a design director at the Boston Housing Authority. He then created and served as the interim director of Jubilee West, Inc., a non-profit community housing agency, from 1993 to 1995. In 1995, Bedford was the executive director of Independent Housing Services, Inc. in San Francisco, California, which sought to increase availability and access to housing for low-income persons with disabilities, seniors, and individuals with HIV/AIDS. Bedford then was hired as an architect for the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) in 1999, where he worked for over twenty-five years.

Bedford’s awards include the Distinguished Service Award from the Clarence Rogers Education Center in 1973 and a Certificate of Appreciation from Jubilee West in 1993. His architectural designs have also appeared in national and international publications.

Bedford has four children and two grandchildren. He and his wife, Marcia Bedford, reside in San Francisco, California.

Roland Bedford was interviewed by The HistoryMakers on January 8, 2024.

Sportswriter Frederick B. Mitchell was born on July 10, 1948, in Cincinnati, Ohio to Esther and LeRoy Mitchell. In 1964, Mitchell graduated from Tolleston High School in Gary, Indiana. In 1969, Mitchell received his B.A. degree in education from Wittenberg University in Springfield, Ohio where he served as the kicker for Wittenberg University’s football team.

From 1969 to 1974, Mitchell taught English and coached football at Grove City High School where he was one of the two first African American teachers at the school and one of the players that Mitchell coached, Gary Steven Burley, was drafted into the NFL. Mitchell played semi-professional football for the Columbus Bucks in Columbus, Ohio, in 1969. He then played for the Chicago Heights Broncos in Chicago, Illinois in 1972. In 1974, Mitchell became the first African American sportswriter and columnist for the Chicago Tribune in Chicago, Illinois, a position he would hold until 2015. As a sportswriter, Mitchell was singular as the only Chicago-based journalist to cover the Bulls, the Bears and the Cubs as a regular beat. Mitchell also wrote eleven books including Ryno! (1985), They Call Me Sarge (1985), Playing Through: Straight Talk on Hard Work, Big Dreams and Adventures with Tiger (1998), Sayers: My Life and Times (2007), Billy Williams: My Sweet-Swinging Lifetime with the Cubs (2008), and Blood, Sweat & Bears: Putting a Dent in the Game I Love (2012). From 2017 to 2020, Mitchell worked as the community correspondent for the Chicago Black Hawks. Mitchell has held two adjunct professor of journalism positions; one at Northwestern University where he worked from 2016 to 2017 and the other at DePaul University where he began teaching in 2017.

Mitchell served as a member of the board of Metropolitan Family Service, the Gary Indiana Sports Hall of Fame, and as a member of the Board of Governors for the American Football Network. He also served as a member on the Board of Trustees of his alma mater, Wittenberg University.

Mitchell has received many awards and honors for his work including the Ring Lardner Award for excellence in sports journalism, the J.G. Taylor Spink Award, and the Outstanding Sports Journalist Award from the Gale Sayers Foundation. In 1995, he was also inducted into Wittenburg University’s Athletic Hall of Fame, as well as the American Football Association’s Minor League Football Hall of Fame in 1999, and the American Football Kicking Hall of Fame in 2013. In 2009, the National Football Foundation named the annual Fred Mitchell Out-standing Place Award for the nation’s top place collegiate kicker after Fred Mitchell.

Mitchell and his wife, Kimberly Mitchell, live in Chicago, Illinois. They have a son named Cameron.

Fred Mitchell was interviewed by The HistoryMakers on May 23, 2023.

Academic Administrator and university president Dwight McBride was born on November 28, 1967 in Honea Path, South Carolina to Bettye and James McBride. He received his B.A. degree in English and his certificate in African American Studies in 1990 from Princeton University in Princeton, New Jersey. He earned his M.A. and Ph.D. degrees in English from The University of California, Los Angeles in 1993 and 1996 respectively.

After receiving his Ph.D. degree, McBride was hired as an assistant professor of English at the University of Pittsburgh. In 1999, he joined the University of Illinois at Chicago as an assistant professor of English and African American Studies. McBride became chair of the Department of African American Studies at Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois in 2002. He remained in that role until 2007, when he returned to the University of Illinois at Chicago as dean of the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences and a professor of African American Studies, English, and Gender & Women’s Studies. In 2010, McBride returned to Northwestern University to serve as dean of the Graduate School, associate provost, and the Daniel Hale Williams Professor of African American Studies, English, & Performance Studies. In 2015, he served as the Mellon Distinguished Scholar-in-Residence at the American Antiquarian Society while establishing the James Baldwin Review. In 2017, McBride became the provost and executive vice president for academic affairs, the Asa Griggs Candler Professor of African American Studies, and Distinguished Affiliated Professor of English at Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia. From 2020 to 2023, McBride served as the ninth and first African American president of The New School in New York City.

McBride is the author of James Baldwin Now, Impossible Witnesses: Truth, Abolitionism, and Slave Testimony, and Why I Hate Abercrombie & Fitch: Essays on Race and Sexuality. He also co-edited the books A Melvin Dixon Critical Reader, Black Like Us: A Century of Lesbian, Gay and Bisexual African American Fiction, Racial Blackness and the Discontinuity of Western Modernity by Lindon Barrett, and The Delectable Negro: Human Consumption and Homoeroticism within US Slave Culture by Vincent Woodard.

McBride served on the board of the About Face Theatre Company in Chicago from 2002 to 2012 and on the Illinois Humanities Council from 2009 to 2017. That year, he joined the Advisory Council of Princeton University’s program in Gender and Sexuality Studies. He became a trustee of The Cooper Union in 2018, a director of Con Edison in 2021, and a member of the Council on Foreign Relations in 2022.

In 2020, McBride was named one of the top 50 influential leaders in higher education in New York State by City & State.

Dwight McBride was interviewed by The HistoryMakers on May 11, 2023.

Military officer vice admiral Melvin G. Williams, Jr. was born on November 3, 1955, in San Diego, California, to Dora Pettes Williams and Melvin G. Williams Sr. He received his B.S. degree in mathematics in 1978 from the U.S. Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland and his M.S. degree in engineering management in 1984 from the Catholic University of America in Washington, D.C.

After serving one year as an enlisted sailor in the U.S. Navy, Williams was commissioned and became a submarine officer in 1978. In 1980, he was a division officer aboard the USS Jack submarine. He then joined the crew of USS Woodrow Wilson in 1984. During the initial combat operations of Operation Desert Storm in 1991, Williams served as executive officer on USS Louisville, the first US nuclear powered submarine to use weapons in combat. In 1994, he became the first African American to command a nuclear-powered strategic ballistic missile submarine, the USS Nebraska (Gold crew). His team became the first Ohio-class submarine to earn the Omaha Trophy. Following the 9/11 terror attacks on the United States, Williams served as the chief of staff for the USS KITTY HAWK Carrier Strike Group during initial combat operations of Operation Enduring Freedom. Williams served as a one-star Rear Admiral as commander Submarine Group Nine in 2003, as a two-star Rear Admiral as director of global operations at the U.S. Strategic Command in 2005, and as a three-star Vice Admiral as deputy commander of U.S. Fleet Forces Command in 2006. He was commander of the U.S. Second Fleet from 2008 to 2010, where he oversaw 130 ships and submarines and over 90,000 sailors.

In 2010, Williams retired from the U.S. Navy at the rank of vice admiral and was appointed by President Barack Obama to the Department of Energy as the associate deputy secretary of energy. Williams and his father, a retired master chief in the U.S. Navy, co-wrote together the leadership book Navigating the Seven Seas in 2011. Williams was hired as associate provost of military and veterans’ affairs at the George Washington University in Washington, D.C. in 2013. In 2016, he became the nuclear research consultant at the University of California, Davis and concurrently served as the associate dean of engineering at the Catholic University of America from 2017 until his retirement in 2022. Williams also served on various boards in the energy, defense, and education sectors.

Decorated for his service in the U.S. Navy, Williams’ honors and awards include two Navy Distinguished Service Medals, a Defense Superior Service Medal, a Meritorious Service Medal, and five Legion of Merit Medals. His civic recognitions include the U.S. Department of Energy “Outstanding Service Award,” the 1995 “Black Engineer of the Year Award,” and the Thurgood Marshall Award for Service and Leadership. He was also inducted into the STEM Hall of Fame in 2011.

Vice Admiral Melvin G. Williams, Jr. was interviewed by The HistoryMakers on February 21, 2023.

Civic leader Derek R.B. Douglas was born on February 19, 1971 in St. Joseph, Michigan to Yvonne Sebro and Walter Douglas. He received his B.A. degree in economics in 1994 from the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, Michigan and his J.D. degree in 1998 from Yale Law School in New Haven, Connecticut.

After receiving his J.D. degree, Douglas was hired as a law clerk by U.S. Court of Appeals Third Circuit Judge Timothy Lewis in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, where he worked for a year before joining the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund as assistant counsel in New York City. In 2002, he was hired as an associate attorney by O’Melveny & Myers LLP in Washington, D.C., working primarily in regulatory law. The Center for American Progress appointed Douglas as its associate director for economic policy and director for the economic mobility program in 2005. From 2007 to 2009, he directed the Washington, D.C. office of New York Governors Eliot Spitzer and David Paterson as their counsel. After the inauguration of President Barack Obama, Douglas served as the special assistant to the President for urban affairs for the White House Domestic Policy Council until 2012. During his time in the Obama administration, he advised the President on metropolitan policy issues with an emphasis on economic development, community reinvestment, health, education, housing, transportation, and public-private partnerships. In 2012, Douglas left the White House for the University of Chicago in Chicago, Illinois, where he served as vice president for civic engagement and external affairs for ten years. At the University of Chicago, he oversaw the development of the Civic Leadership Academy and expanded the university’s work with Chicago Public Schools Students. In 2022, Douglas was appointed as the president of the Civic Committee and the Commercial Club of Chicago.

Douglas has served as a director on the boards of the Argonne National Laboratory; the University of Chicago Laboratory Schools; the Skadden Fellowship Foundation; the Civic Consulting Alliance; Kids First Chicago; the Western Golf Association/Evans Scholarship Foundation; Openlands; and Teach For America.

Douglas received the Urban Leadership Award from the Penn Institute for Urban Research in 2012 as well as an Honorary Doctorate from Andrews University in 2013. In 2009 and 2011, he was named to the The Root's "Root 100" and was named to the "Men of Excellence" list by The Chicago Defender in 2022.

Douglas lives in Chicago, Illinois with his wife, Ellen Douglas. They have two daughters.

Derek R.B. Douglas was interviewed by The HistoryMakers on January 13, 2023.

Public relations professional Angelo Ellerbee was born on January 9, 1957 in Newark, New Jersey to Eva Ellerbee and June Angus Ellerbee. He received his A.A. degree in fashion design and buying in 1978 from the Fashion Institute of Technology in New York City.

During the late 1970s, he worked as a stylist for clients ranging from Newark First Lady Muriel Gibson to Nina Simone and Essence magazine while organizing fashion shows in New York City. His public relations career began in the 1980s when American jazz and R&B musician James Mtume hired him as his publicist and later vice president of Ifland/Mtume Corporation. Ellerbee then joined Chrysalis Records as a director of publicity and artist development. He promoted the careers of artists like Gang Starr, Innocence and Urban Soul. In 1985, he became the founder and president of Double XXposure Media Relations Inc. Ellerbee’s clients included top music artists such as Mary J. Blige, Alicia Keys, Whitney Houston, Michael Jackson, Ginuwine, Roberta Flack, Robert “Kool” Bell, Dionne Warwick, NFL player Ricky Williams, track & field star Angelo Taylor, and NBA player Ben Gordon. Ellerbee worked as senior vice president of publicity for Island Def Jam Records. He was hired as president of rapper Earl “DMX” Simmons’s label Bloodline Records in 2000. Ellerbee is the author of Ask Angelo: An Inside Look at the Entertainment Industry (2016) and The Sense of Success (2018).

A lifelong advocate for LGBTQ community causes and organizations, Ellerbee served on the board of directors for the Gay Men’s Health Alliance and as chairman of the board for Gay Men of African Descent. He was also chairman of the board of the Mary Ellen Foundation, a mental health non-profit.

Ellerbee received the Lifetime Achievement Award from the Newark-Essex Pride Coalition in 2008 and the Diamond Award from the Black Fairy Godmother Foundation in 2022.

Ellerbee lives in North Bergen, New Jersey.

Angelo Ellerbee was interviewed by The HistoryMakers on January 9, 2023.