Nurse and healthcare executive E. Lorraine Baugh was born on October 25, 1938 in Boston, Massachusetts to Margaret and James Middleton. Baugh joined the U.S. Air Force Reserve in 1956 and later became a registered nurse and Second Lieutenant. She graduated from the Boston City Hospital School of Nursing in 1961 and went on to earn both her B.S. and M.S. degrees in nursing education in 1964 and 1965, respectively, from Boston University. She later pursued her Ed.D. degree in educational administration at Boston College and completed all requirements except her dissertation in 1990.

From 1961 to 1964, Baugh worked as a staff nurse at Boston City Hospital before being hired in 1965 by Northeastern University as an assistant professor of nursing. In 1968, she became a program coordinator at Opening the Doors Wider in Nursing, Inc.; and from 1970 to 1973, she was executive director of Nursing Education Opportunities, Inc. At the same time, she was serving as a flight nurse and training officer, rising to the rank of captain before receiving an honorable discharge in 1977. In 1973, Baugh was also appointed president and executive director of Harvard Street Neighborhood Health from 1973, a position she held until 1981. In 1981, Baugh joined the faculty at Boston University’s School of Public Health as an assistant professor. She also served as an associate professor of management and chair of the Health Services Administration Program at Lesley College Graduate School outside Boston, Massachusetts from 1983 to 1990. In 1985, Baugh assumed the responsibilities of her late husband’s construction and architecture consultant firm until 1990, when she joined the Harvard Community Health Plan as its health center administrator and project manager. She then served as president and chief executive officer of Charles River Hospital in Wellesley, Massachusetts, from 1995 to 1996.

In 1996, she became president and CEO of the Lena Park Community Development Corporation.

Baugh co-founded the National Black Nurses Association in 1971 and served as its president from 1979 to 1983. She also co-founded the New England Regional Black Nurses Association in 1973 and was its president until 1976. From 1985 to 1995, Baugh served as the first chair of the Board of Trustees at the Massachusetts General Hospital Institute of Health Professions.

During her career, Baugh has received numerous honors for her work, including the Lifetime Achievement Award from the National Black Nurses Association in 2008 and the Black Achievers Award in Business and Education from the Greater Boston YMCA. She also received honorary Doctor of Humane Letters degrees from Endicott College in 2002 and from the Massachusetts General Hospital Institute of Health Professions in 2018.

Baugh was married to Dalton Louis Baugh from 1969 to his passing in 1985. She resides in Boston, Massachusetts.

E. Lorraine Baugh was interviewed by The HistoryMakers on June 13, 2023.

Corporate executive Tellis Bethel was born on March 5, 1976 in Wichita, Kansas to Tellis Bethel, Sr. and Mei Yueh-Er. Bethel graduated from the Science Academy at Lyndon B. Johnson Early College High School in Austin, Texas. He went on to receive his B.A. degree in business administration from Clark Atlanta University in Atlanta, Georgia in 1998 and his M.B.A. degree in general finance from Indiana University’s Kelley School of Business in Bloomington, Indiana in 2003.

Bethel began his career as an assistant trader for Goldman Sachs and later worked as a senior financial analyst at Dell Technologies. In 2003, he joined Toyota Motor North America in Torrance, California as manager of the treasury. He served as director of finance at Lennox International in 2007 and founded Bethel Securities, LLC the following year. Bethel returned to Toyota Motor North America in 2010 as a finance analytics manager. Over the next fifteen years, he held several positions within the company, including business marketing manager of sales in 2014; senior manager of risk in 2016; general manager of finance and business analytics in 2019; vice president of voluntary protection products in 2021; and group vice president and chief social innovation officer in 2022. In 2023, he became Toyota’s chief diversity officer and was promoted to president and CEO of the Toyota Financial Savings Bank in 2024. During his tenure at Toyota, he oversaw several initiatives including the Way Forward Fund, a multi-year initiative supporting care for children with traumatic brain injuries.

Bethel served as a board member of the Boys & Girls Club of America, North Texas Food Bank, TutorMe, the National Urban League, Junior Achievement USA, and the Nevada Bankers Association. In 2023, he served as a judge for the United Way of Metropolitan Dallas’s Social Innovator of the Year Awards.

During his time at Toyota, Bethel received noteworthy honors and awards including the President’s Award for his community service and the Diversity Champion Award in 2022.

Bethel lives with his wife, Crysti, in Allen, Texas. They have two children.

Tellis Bethel was interviewed by The HistoryMakers on June 17, 2023.

Automobile dealer Irving Matthews was born on November 23, 1947 in New Iberia, Louisiana to Ella and Aaron Matthews. Matthews received his B.S. degree in electrical engineering technology from Southern University and A&M College in Baton Rouge, Louisiana in 1970.

After graduation, Matthews began his professional career at Procter & Gamble in 1970 as an engineer in the company’s manufacturing division. Over the course of thirteen years, he advanced through the ranks to become manufacturing operations manager—one of the few African Americans at the time to hold such a senior post within the company. He was then hired by the Frito Lay Company in 1983 as plant manager for its Orlando, Florida facility. In 1991, Matthews purchased the Prestige Ford car dealership in Mount Dora, Florida and founded the Matthews Automotive Group. Over the next decade, Matthews expanded his business holdings, acquiring two additional dealerships in 1999—Toyota and Mazda stores located in Stuart and Daytona Beach, Florida—and later adding a Kia dealership. These became the Matthews Automotive Group, and Matthews served as its president and CEO for more than thirty years.

As a civic leader and philanthropist, Matthews served on the board of trustees of the Southern University Foundation and the Dr. Phillips Performing Arts Center. He served as a member of the Democratic National Convention Finance Committee. Matthews joined Sigma Pi Phi Fraternity, Inc. in 2002, where he later served as Sire Archon. From 2002 to 2011, Matthews served as chairman of the board of trustees at Bethune-Cookman University in Daytona Beach, Florida; and, in 2020, he was named president of the Florida Guardsmen. In 2021, Matthews donated $1 million to Southern University and A&M College to develop the Matthews Center for Innovation and Entrepreneurship, which was named in his honor.

Throughout his career, Matthews received numerous awards and honors, including the Ford Dealers Workplace Literacy Award in 1990. In 1994, he was named a Rising Star among African Americans by Dollars & Sense magazine. Bethune-Cookman University awarded him an honorary Doctor of Laws degree in 2008, and Southern University awarded him an honorary Doctor of Humane Letters degree in 2021. In 2022, he received the Lifetime Achievement Award from the National Association of Minority Automobile Dealers and the Eagle Award from the African American Chamber of Commerce Central Florida.

Matthews lives in Orlando, Florida. He has three children.

Irving Matthews was interviewed by The HistoryMakers on June 15, 2023.

Non-profit executive and author Jennifer Smith Turner was born on November 3, 1952 in Boston, Massachusetts to Margaree and Herman Smith. She received her B.A. degree in English from Union College in Schenectady, New York in 1974; and her M.A. degree in 1987 from Fairfield University in Fairfield, Connecticut.

Turner joined Travelers Insurance Company in Hartford, Connecticut after graduating from Union College in 1974. She became an assistant manager for the City of Hartford in 1984. Turner was later hired by Aetna Life & Casualty, where she held several leadership positions, including assistant vice president of staffing and corporate human resources, vice president of occupational managed care, chief of staff, and chief operating officer. In 1996, she was hired as vice president of medical management for the BerkleyCare Network. In 2000, she served one year as CEO and president of Practicare, Inc. before returning to government service in 2004 as deputy commissioner for the State of Connecticut’s Department of Economic and Community Development. In 2007, Turner was hired as CEO of the Girl Scouts of Connecticut, where she worked for five years. Subsequently, in 2016, Turner served as interim president and CEO of Newman’s Own Foundation where she continued her role both as s board member and as CEO until 2020. From 1999, Turner also founded Smith & Associates, her own management consulting firm.

An acclaimed writer, Turner is the author of several books, including Perennial Secrets, Poetry & Prose (2003), Lost and Found, Rhyming Verse Honoring African American Heroes (2006), and Child Bride (2020). The latter won the NYC Big Book Award, the Story Circle Network’s Sarton Award for Historical Fiction, and the Black Caucus of the American Library Association’s Best E-Book Award.

During her career, Turner has served on many boards, including Martha’s Vineyard Bank, the University of Hartford, the Greater Hartford Arts Council, the Foundation for Mental Health, the Hospice of Martha’s Vineyard, New England Association of Schools and Colleges, Hartford Stage, St. Francis Hospital, the University of Connecticut, Connecticut Public Television, the Connecticut Golf Foundation, Hartford College for Women, St. Joseph’s College, and United Way of the Capitol Region.

Her honors include being named among the NAACP’s 100 Most Influential Blacks in Connecticut in 2010, appearing in Hartford Business Journal’s Eight Remarkable Business Women list the same year, receiving the BRAVA Award from the YWCA of Greenwich in 2011, and being awarded an honorary Doctor of Humane Letters from the University of Hartford in 2016.

Jennifer Smith Turner was interviewed by The HistoryMakers on June 12, 2023.

Media executive Darryl Ford Williams was born on January 30, 1957 in Montclair, New Jersey to Douglas Ford, Jr. and Dorothie Ford. Williams received her B.A./B.S. degree in speech arts with a foreign language minor from Boston College in Newton, Massachusetts in 1979.

Williams’s career in media began in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania when she joined KDKA-TV as a producer in 1979. In 1987, she was hired as an executive producer at WJLA-TV in Washington, D.C. Two years later, Williams founded the Ford Williams Agency, where she worked as a consultant until 2004. During this time, her clients included ABC News; WTAE-TV Pittsburgh; Black Entertainment Television, Inc; WJLA-Washington, D.C.; and Gannett Broadcasting. Between 1994 and 1996, Williams also served as a coordinating producer for ABC’s flagship Good Morning America program in New York City, New York. In 2004, she became vice president of content at WQED Media in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania and remained there seventeen years. During that time, she produced the documentaries August Wilson: The Ground on Which I Stand (2015) and Harbor from the Holocaust (2020).

Williams served on the boards of the Shady Side Academy, the Pittsburgh Film Office, the Pittsburgh Ballet Theater, the Pennsylvania Charter Schools Appeal Board, the Winchester Thurston School, the University of Pittsburgh Clinical & Translational Science Advisory Board, Point Park University’s Executive Committee and Board of Trustees, the National Black Programming Consortium, and Black Public Media. She is also a member of Links, Inc.; Jack and Jill of America, Inc.; the African American Chamber of Commerce; and the International Women’s Forum.

Williams received multiple awards and honors, including seven Emmy Awards and various Emmy nominations. In 1996, Boston College presented her with an Alumni Award for Excellence. She was nominated for an NAACP Image Award for August Wilson: The Ground on Which I Stand in 2016; and, in 2021, she received the Robert L. Vann Media Award from the Pittsburgh Black Media Foundation.

Williams lives with her husband, Joseph K. Williams III, in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. They have one child, Joseph.

Darryl Ford Williams was interviewed by The HistoryMakers on June 16, 2023.

Entrepreneur Anthony A. Samuels was born on March 24, 1961 in Brooklyn, New York to Henry Samuels, Jr. and Yvonne Morgan Samuels. He attended George Westinghouse Career and Technical High School in Brooklyn, where he received his A.A. degree in computer-aided drafting, and his printed circuit design certificate from Roxbury Community College in Boston, Massachusetts in 1987. Samuels also received a certification in electro-mechanical drafting from the ITT Technical Institute in 1983 and a certificate in executive education from the Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth College in Hanover, New Hampshire in 1995.

In 1983, Samuels was hired by Raytheon as a computer-aided drafter. He would continue working in various drafting and technician roles throughout the 1980s until 1993, when he founded Done Right Building Services, a facilities management services firm located in Boston, Massachusetts. His clients included Blue Cross Blue Shield of Massachusetts; the City of Boston; the Massachusetts Water Resources Authority; Harvard Pilgrim Health Care; Tufts University in Medford, Massachusetts; Northeastern University in Boston, Massachusetts; Shops at Chestnut Hill in Boston, Massachusetts; and the Simon Property Group. Samuels later renamed the company DRB Facility Services to reflect its widening client base. Under his leadership as president and CEO for more than thirty years, DRB Facility Services grew to become one of the largest minority-owned facility-services companies in Massachusetts, with annual revenues that have grown to $21 million. In 2019, Samuels participated as an inaugural member of the Eastern Bank’s Business Equity Initiative, a program designed to support the growth of minority-owned businesses.

Samuels served on the boards of the Associated Industries of Massachusetts, the Greater New England Minority Supplier Development Council, Roxbury Community College in Boston, Massachusetts, and the Yawkey Boys & Girls Club of Roxbury.

Samuels’s company, DRB Facility Services, was featured on the Small Business Administration’s 100 Companies list and the Boston Business Journal’s Largest Minority-Owned Businesses in Massachusetts and Largest Janitorial Firms in Boston lists in 2024. That same year, DRB Facility Services received the Supplier of the Year Award from the Greater New England Minority Supplier Development Council.

Samuels lives with his wife, Doris Samuels, in Boston, Massachusetts. They have two children and three grandchildren.

Anthony A. Samuels was interviewed by The HistoryMakers on June 13, 2023.

Futures Trader Elrick Williams, Jr. was born on November 21, 1947 in Harlem, New York to Nell Vera Lowe and Elrick Williams, Sr. He earned his B.A. degrees in chemistry and economics in 1969 from Williams College in Williamstown, Massachusetts. He went on to earn his M.B.A. degree in finance in 1971 from Harvard Business School in Boston, Massachusetts.

Williams began his professional career in 1973 as overseas controller for Trans World Airlines (TWA), where he modernized the airline’s accounting operations with computerized systems and new methods for revenue forecasting. He remained with TWA for seven years before 1980 when he joined the Chicago Mercantile Exchange as a futures and derivatives trader and established him himself as one of the early African Americans in the field of electronic and algorithmic trading. In 1995, he worked as program manager for the International Foundation for Education and Self-Help, followed by a role as contract programmer for American Express in 1997.

In 2002, Williams co-founded Allston Trading LLC, a proprietary trading firm specializing in high-frequency trading and quantitative financial strategies, alongside fellow traders Robert Jordan and John Harada. As chief executive officer, he oversaw the company’s growth into one of Chicago’s leading independent trading firms. Williams sold his ownership stake in 2007 and retired from his executive role the following year. From 2014 to 2016, he returned to the financial sector as managing director of Mocho Trading, where he continued to advise on market strategies and trading technologies.

In 2005, Williams and his sister, Paula Madison, invested in The Africa Channel, a television network dedicated to showcasing the African diaspora. Williams served as its chief executive officer for nine years with a focus on content development and international partnerships. In 2006, Madison founded Williams Group Holdings, a family investment firm through which Williams served as partner, overseeing diverse assets in media, real estate, and international ventures. That same year, the company acquired a majority stake in the WNBA’s Los Angeles Sparks, which they owned until 2014. In 2018, Williams became an international trade consultant for Ding Chow Family Enterprises, a private investment firm based in Shenzhen with a focus on international trading of agriculture and mineral ores.

Williams was featured in his sister Paula Madison’s 2014 documentary titled Finding Samuel Lowe: From Harlem to China with their brother Howard Williams.

Williams resides in Edgartown, Massachusetts.

Elrick Williams was interviewed by The HistoryMakers on June 20, 2023.

Blues guitarist George Freeman was born on April 10, 1927 in Chicago, Illinois to George Freeman, Sr. and Carol Marie Granberry Freeman.

He attended DuSable High School in Chicago, Illinois and began playing guitar in the early 1940s when he was invited to play with Eugene Wright’s band, The Dukes of Swing. He later formed his own band, which included alto saxophonist Henry Pryor, tenor saxophonist Alec Johnson, and trumpeter Robert Gay. The group performed regularly at the Pershing Hotel in Chicago and played with guest musicians such as tenor saxophonists Coleman Hawkins and Lester Young. In 1947, Freeman moved to New York City, New York and joined a band with tenor saxophonist Johnny Griffin and trumpeter Joe Morris. That same year, he made his first recording with the Joe Morris Orchestra. Freeman then returned to Chicago, where he resumed performing at the Pershing Hotel and frequently played with saxophonist Charlie “Bird” Parker. In 1959, Freeman toured nationally with tenor saxophonist Sil Austin and vocalist Jackie Wilson. During the 1960s, he collaborated with organist Richard Groove Holmes and appeared on four of Holmes’ albums, including Groove in 1961 and The Groover! in 1968. In 1969, Freeman joined tenor saxophonist Gene Ammons’s band and contributed to several of Ammons’s albums, including The Black Cat! in 1971. He also recorded four albums with organist Jimmy McGriff, including Fly Dude in 1972.

Freeman released his first album as a band leader, Birth Sign, in 1972. In 1974, he appeared on The Last Blues Album Volume 1 alongside drummer Buddy Rich and tenor saxophonist Illinois Jacquet. Freeman continued performing in Chicago clubs and studios throughout the 1970s, contributing to Johnny Griffin’s album Bush Dance in 1979. Throughout his career, Freeman performed with his brothers, tenor saxophonist Von Freeman and drummer Eldridge Bruz Freeman. He appeared at venues across the United States and internationally, including the Chicago Jazz Festival, where he served as a headliner in 2015, 2017, and 2019. In 2021 and 2022, he performed at the Green Mill Cocktail Lounge in the Uptown neighborhood of Chicago, Illinois.

As a band leader, Freeman has released more than ten albums, including Rebellion with Von Freeman in 1995, All in the Family with his nephew, tenor saxophonist and trumpeter Chico Freeman, in 2015, 90 Going On Amazing in 2017, Everybody Say Yeah! in 2022, and The Good Life in 2023.

In 2014, Freeman was recognized as the Chicagoan of the Year in Jazz Music by the Chicago Tribune.

George Freeman was interviewed by The HistoryMakers on May 23, 2023.

Religious leader Bill Winston was born on May 6, 1943 in Tuskegee, Alabama to Sammie and William Winston. Winston graduated in 1967 from the Tuskegee Institute (now Tuskegee University) in Tuskegee, Alabama, where he served in the ROTC program. During his career, Winston also attended Logos Bible School (later Logos University) in Altamonte Springs, Florida in 1985 and Oral Roberts University in Tulsa, Oklahoma in 1996.

For six years, Winston served as a fighter pilot in the U.S. Air Force in 1973 during the Vietnam War. From 1973 to 1985, he worked at IBM in Minneapolis, Minnesota as a marketing representative and regional marketing manager. During this time, Winston decided to enter the ministry; in 1988, he and his family moved to Chicago, Illinois where he founded the Living Word Church of Chicago, Illinois in 1989. In 1990, Winston relocated the church to Forest Park, Illinois, where it became the Living Word Christian Center, eventually serving more than 20,000 members. In 1998, Winston established the Joseph Business School in Forest Park prior to founding Bill Winston Ministries, the Faith Ministries Alliance, Golden Eagle Aviation, the Living Word Christian Center Prison Ministry, the Joseph Center for Business Development, Covenant Bancshares, Inc., and the Royal Christian Bookstores and Cafes, located in Forest Park Plaza, Illinois and the Washington Plaza Mall in Tuskegee, Alabama. As part of his ministry, Winston hosted the Believer’s Walk of Faith television and radio program and authored more than fifteen motivational and business books. In 2016, Winston delivered the invocation at the Tuskegee Airmen’s seventy-fifth anniversary gathering and the fortieth anniversary celebration of the Tuskegee Airmen’s Chicago DODO Chapter in Gary, Indiana.

Winston’s numerous honors and awards include a Distinguished Alumni Award from Tuskegee University in 2015 and an honorary doctorate of humane letters from Friends International Christian University in Merced, California in 2016. For his service in the U.S. Air Force, Winston received the Distinguished Flying Cross, the Air Medal, and the Squadron Top Gun Award.

Winston and his wife, Veronica Irene Brown Winston, live in Forest Park, Illinois. They have three children: Melody, Nicole, and David, and eight grandchildren.

Reverend Bill Winston was interviewed by The HistoryMakers on May 25, 2023.

University president and lawyer Zaldwaynaka “Z.” Scott was born on August 5, 1958 in Shreveport, Louisiana to Obie Scott and Jerry Nichols-Scott. She earned her B.S. degree in broadcast journalism from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in 1980 and her J.D. degree from the Indiana University School of Law in Bloomington in 1983.

Following law school, Scott began her career in 1983 as an attorney with the City of Chicago’s Office of the Corporation Counsel. The was then hired in 1987 as Assistant United States Attorney in the Northern District of Illinois in 1987 and remained there for sixteen years, where she served as chief of the general crimes section in 1997. In 2003, Scott became the first Executive Inspector General for the State of Illinois. Scott also pursued a career in legal education as an adjunct professor at the Northwestern University Pritzker School of Law in Chicago, Illinois from 1993 to 2005; at the University of Chicago School of Law from 2001 to 2003; and at Chicago’s John Marshall Law School from 2002 to 2004. In 2005, she joined Mayer Brown LLP as a partner and co-leader of its white-collar criminal defense and compliance group. She was hired in 2010 at the law firm Arnold & Porter Kaye Scholer LLP, where she worked until she joined Foley & Lardner LLP in 2016. Scott then left the legal profession to become president of Chicago State University in Chicago, Illinois.

Scott’s career has shown a strong commitment to public service. Prior to her presidency, Scott served on the board of trustees of Chicago State University from 2010 to 2013. In 2011, she was named chairman of the Chicago Housing Authority’s Board of Commissioners by Mayor Rahm Emanuel. Scott also sat on the boards of the Ann & Robert H. Lurie Children’s Hospital of Chicago, the United States Coast Guard Academy, and the Shedd Aquarium. From 2011 to 2016, she served on the board of visitors for her alma mater, the Indiana University Maurer School of Law. In 2022, she was appointed an independent director for Commonwealth Edison.

Throughout her career, Scott has received numerous awards and honors including the Distinguished Service Award from the Indiana University Maurer School of Law in 2012, the Anita P. Miller Advocacy Award from the American Bar Association in 2015, and the Legacy in the Law Award from the Black Women Lawyers’ Association of Greater Chicago, Inc. in 2017. Crain’s Chicago Business named her to its Most Powerful Women in Chicago list in 2018. In 2019, she was inducted into the Indiana University Maurer School of Law’s Academy of Law Alumni Fellows.

Zaldwaynaka “Z.” Scott was interviewed by The HistoryMakers on May 23, 2023.