Management consultant Sylvia Sloan Black was born on October 24, 1946 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, to Charlotte Kennedy Sloan and Maceo Sloan. Black received her B.S. degree in physics from Howard University in Washington, D.C. in 1968; her M.S. degree in computer science from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in 1974; her M.B.A. degree from the University of Kansas in Lawrence in 1981; and her Ph.D. degree in strategic management from Columbia Business School in New York City, New York in 1997.

After graduating from the University of Kansas, Black worked as an operations manager at the Pacific Trade Group before becoming a financial analyst for a U.S. Department of Defense Cadet Store in 1985, serving in this capacity for eight years. She began teaching strategic management at the Kenan-Flager Business School at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in 1993 before moving to North Carolina Agricultural and Technical (A&T) State University in Chapel Hill in 2001 as an assistant professor of strategic management where she worked until 2007. She became president and principal consultant of Black Star Strategies, Inc., where she worked for more than fifteen years. The following year, she also began working as an executive coach with the Center for Creative Leadership in Greensboro, North Carolina. Her coaching practice expanded in 2020 to include Delta Leadership, Inc., in Durham, North Carolina and the Spiro Coaching Institute in Chapel Hill, North Carolina.

In addition to her academic and consulting work, Black served on many boards, including the North Carolina Lutheran Synod Council, the North Carolina Lutheran Synod Candidacy Committee, A Ban Against Neglect, the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America Fund for Leaders, the Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service’s President’s Advisory Council, and the board of directors for Habitat for Humanity’s Orange County, North Carolina Chapter for ten years beginning in 2007. She also served as African American and first female chair of the U.S. Army War College Board of Visitors. Black became a member of Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, Inc. in 1966.

In recognition of her achievements, Black received numerous honors, including the Outstanding Civilian Service Award from the U.S. Department of the Army in 2003 and the Advisor of the Year Award from North Carolina Agricultural & Technical State University in 2006. She and her husband, Frederick H. Black, received the Citizen of the Year Award from the Chapel Hill-Carrboro Chamber of Commerce in 2015. Black was inducted into the Howard University chapter of Phi Beta Kappa in 1968.

Black lives with her husband, Frederick H. Black, in Chapel Hill, North Carolina. They have two children and two grandchildren.

Sylvia Sloan Black was interviewed by The HistoryMakers on April 20, 2023.

Military officer Colonel Frederick H. Black was born on October 17, 1946 in Chicago, Illinois, to Gorham Black, Jr. and Mabel Black. Black received his B.A. degree in government from Howard University in Washington, D.C. in 1968 and his M.P.A. degree from Syracuse University in New York in 1976.

After graduating from Howard University in 1968, Black joined the United States Army as an airborne infantry platoon leader at Fort Bragg near Fayetteville, North Carolina and served for a total of twenty-six years. During this period, Black also worked as a professor of social sciences at the United States Military Academy in West Point, New York, for fifteen years. Following his retirement from the U.S. Army in 1994, Black founded his own consulting firm, FHB Consulting, Inc., where he served as CEO until 2009. His clients included Blue Cross Blue Shield of North Carolina, the Chief of Staff of the United States Army, National Defense University, General Motors, Nissan, and Sprint. In 2010, Black became senior vice president of Black Star Strategies, Inc., a consulting and executive coaching firm, where he worked for six years before his retirement in 2016.

During his career, Black served on the boards of numerous organizations, including the Boy Scouts of America Hudson-Delaware Council, the United States Military Academy Board of Visitors, the West Point Lutheran Congregation, the West Point-Highland Falls Rotary Club, the Chapel Hill Public Library Board of Trustees, the Interfaith Council, the North Carolina Veterans Commission, the Habitat for Humanity Capital Campaign, the Chapel Hill-Carrboro Chamber of Commerce, and the Military Officers Association of America. Black was also a member of Kappa Alpha Psi, Inc., the American Political Science Association, the American Society of Notaries, the American Society for Public Administration, and the Association of the United States Army.

Black also received numerous awards and honors, such as the Kappa Alpha Psi Fraternity, Inc. Man of the Year Award, the Silver Beaver Award from the Hudson-Delaware Council of the Boy Scouts of America in 1992, and the Citizen of the Year Award from the Chapel Hill-Carrboro Chamber of Commerce in 2015. For his military service, Black received the Legion of Merit, a Bronze Star, a Meritorious Service Medal with two Oak Leaf Clusters, a Joint Service Commendation Medal, an Army Commendation Medal, a National Defense Service Medal, an Overseas Service Ribbon with one Oak Leaf Cluster, an Army Service Ribbon, a Vietnam Service Medal, and a Korea Defense Service Medal.

Black lives with his wife, Sylvia Sloan Black, in Chapel Hill, North Carolina. They have two children and two grandchildren.

Frederick H. Black was interviewed by The HistoryMakers on April 20, 2023.

Politician and judge George Kenneth “G.K.” Butterfield was born on April 27, 1947 in New York, New York to George Kenneth Butterfield, Sr. and Addie Davis. Butterfield received his B.A. degree in sociology and political science in 1971. He was awarded his J.D. degree in 1974 from North Carolina Central University in Durham, North Carolina.

In 1968, Butterfield served as a personnel specialist at Fort Bragg near Fayetteville, North Carolina. After receiving an honorable discharge in 1970 and completing his J.D. degree, Butterfield became an associate for the Clayton & Balance law firm in 1974. The following year, Butterfield started his own law firm, Fitch, Butterfield & Summer, with Milton F. “Toby” Fitch, Jr. It subsequently became Fitch & Butterfield firm in 1977, and then Fitch, Butterfield & Wynn in 1984. Butterfield started his judicial career in 1989 as a resident superior court judge on the State of North Carolina Judicial Branch, a position he held for twelve years. In 2001, Governor Michael Easley appointed him to the First Division of the Superior Court of North Carolina. After serving for three years on the Superior Court, Butterfield was elected to the U.S. Congress in 2004 as a U.S. House Representative for the First District of North Carolina where he served for eighteen years. In 2022, Butterfield then joined the McGuireWoods law firm in Washington, D.C as a senior advisor in federal affairs.

During his career, Butterfield served as a member of the Groove Phi Groove Social Fellowship, Inc. starting in 1967; as a life member starting in 1970 to the Darden Alumni Association as well as a member of Sigma Pi Phi Fraternity. Butterfield was active in the Congressional Black Caucus from 2004 to 2022 including serving as chair of the CBC from 2014 to 2016.

Butterfield received numerous awards and honors, including an honorary doctorate of human letters from Fayetteville State University in 2018, the YMCA’s Congressional Champion Award in 2022, and the North Carolina Award for Public Service from the State of North Carolina in 2023. The City of Greenville, North Carolina, voted unanimously in 2018 to rename a transportation center the G.K. Butterfield Transportation Center in his honor.

Butterfield resides in Wilson, North Carolina, with his wife, Dr. Sylvia M. Butterfield. He has three children: Valeisha, Lenai, and Tunya.

The Honorable G.K. Butterfield was interviewed by The HistoryMakers on April 18, 2023.

Music educator Fernando Jones was born on February 7, 1964 in the Bronzeville neighborhood of Chicago, Illinois to Essie and Willie Jones. Inspired by his older brother, multi-instrumentalist Greg Jones, he began learning to play guitar in 1968 and received his first instrument from his uncle two years later. Jones earned his B.A. degree in architecture and art from the University of Illinois at Chicago in 1987.

While a student, Jones organized the university’s first blues festival in 1985. He later performed as a musician and actor in theater productions, including The Lifting, directed by Ron O.J. Parson at ETA Creative Arts Foundation in 1988. In 1989, he published I Was There When the Blues Was Red Hot, with a foreword by Sterling D. Plumpp. Jones launched the Blues Kids of America program in 1990 and, in 2005, became the founding director of the Blues Ensemble Program at Columbia College Chicago. In 2010, Jones Blues Camp International, to teach youth musicians ages twelve through eighteen blues music. As a performer with his band, Fernando Jones & My Band!, he appeared internationally and at major venues such as the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in Cleveland, Ohio and the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C.

Jones participated in conferences hosted by the National Association of Music Merchants, the National Alliance of Black School Educators, the Association for Popular Music Education, and Delta State University’s Blues Conference.

He joined the Chicago Federation of Musicians in 1993 and became a life member of Kappa Alpha Psi Fraternity in 2016. Jones was inducted into the Chicago Blues Hall of Fame as a Master Blues Artist & Educator in 2014, and received the Keep the Blues Alive Education Award in 2008 and the Torch for Fine Arts Award from Sigma Gamma Rho Sorority, Inc., in 2015.

Jones lives in Chicago, Illinois.

Fernando Jones was interviewed by The HistoryMakers on April 6, 2023 and on November 6, 2024.

Marketing executive Roslyn C. Chapman was born on March 10, 1956 in Richmond, Virginia to Bertha and Howard Chapman. She received her B.A. degree in psychology from Hampton University in Hampton, Virginia in 1978.

Chapman moved to Atlanta, Georgia in 1978, where she worked in purchasing at Federated Department Stores, Inc., the parent company for both Goldsmith’s and Bloomingdale’s. She then joined Johnson Products Company in Chicago, Illinois in 1979 as its national accounts manager. In 1985, Chapman became a sales and marketing executive at Alberto-Culver, in Chicago, Illinois, which grew to become a Fortune 500 company in 1987. She remained there for fifteen years until 2000 when she founded The Chapman Edge, LLC, a sales management consulting company. Her clients include industry leaders like Revlon. Chapman has also written for trade publications like Mass Market Retailers, Chain Drug Review, and Drug Store News. In 2016, she contributed to the article Experts: Cultivate Diversity in Beauty, in Mass Market Retailers.

During her career, Chapman has been active in several organizations including serving as a a member of Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, Inc. in Hampton, Virginia; joining the Boys & Girls Club of Chicago in 2000 and serving on the Black Creativity Advisory Board of Chicago’s Museum of Science and Industry. In 2015, she became a founding board member of the Global Beauty Alliance and she served on that board until 2022. In 2018, Chapman also helped to found the WE Foundation, which empowers young women in health and wellness.

In 1996 and 1998, Chapman was included in the Gale Group’s Who’s Who Among African Americans.

She resides in Chicago, Illinois.

Roslyn C. Chapman was interviewed by The HistoryMakers on April 5, 2023.

Technology consultant Thomas D. McElroy II was born on November 1, 1961 in Chicago, Illinois to Bobbie Topsy and Thomas McElroy I. He graduated from Kenwood Academy in Chicago in 1980. McElroy received his A.D. degree from Kennedy-King College in 1982 and his B.S. degree in computer science from DePaul University in 1988, both in Chicago.

From 1986 to 1987, McElroy worked as an organizer for the Harold Washington Mayoral Campaign in Chicago. He later served as an advisor to the Obama for America political action committee between 2010 and 2012. In 2001, McElroy founded Level-1 Global Solutions, LLC, a technology consulting firm specializing in systems integration and strategic planning. Its clients included the Chicago Department of Aviation, the Chicago Housing Authority, the Chicago Transit Authority, the Chicago Police Department, Chicago Public Schools, the City of Chicago, Cook County, the State of Illinois, and United Airlines. McElroy served as principal and CEO of the firm for more than twenty years.

McElroy sat on the advisory board of the Chicago Academy for Advanced Technology and participated in a number of civic and professional organizations, including the Chicago Central Area Committee, the Chicago Community Trust, the Chicago Minority Supplier Development Council, and the Black Creativity Council at the Griffin Museum of Science and Industry. He also took part in the Chicago Public Schools’ Real Men Read mentorship program, the Chicago Sinfonietta, the Ravinia Festival, and the Chicago Mayor’s Council of Technology Advisors.

McElroy joined the Forbes Technology Council in Chicago in 2020. Beginning in 2022, he served as a board member for World Business Chicago and the Grant Park Music Festival. He was also a member of the American Society of Civil Engineers, Clayco Connects, the Telecommunications Industry Association/Electronics Industries Alliance Professional Network, the National Forum for Black Public Administrators, and Young Democrats of America.

McElroy received honors from the U.S. Small Business Administration and the Chicago Urban League. He was featured on Crain’s Chicago Business’s Notable Entrepreneurs list in 2020. In 2022, Level-1 Global Solutions, LLC was a finalist for the Illinois Real Estate Journal’s Professional Service Firm of the Year Award.

He resides in Chicago, Illinois.

Thomas D. McElroy II was interviewed by The HistoryMakers on April 5, 2023.

Lawyer Graham C. Grady was born on May 2, 1957 in Chicago, Illinois to Mary Forte Grady and Leonard Grady. He received his B.A. degree in speech communication from the University of Illinois at Chicago in 1980 and his J.D. degree from the Northwestern University Pritzker School of Law in Chicago in 1983.

Grady began his legal career in 1984 as an assistant state’s attorney in the Office of the Attorney General in Chicago. In 1986, he was appointed executive director of the private industry council in Chicago’s Office of the Mayor. Grady later served as zoning administrator for the Department of Planning and Development from 1989 until 1993, and as building commissioner from 1994 until 1995. Shortly thereafter, he was named chief executive officer and board director of the Chicago Housing Authority. In 1996, Grady joined Mayer Brown LLP as counsel, where he remined for eight years. He became an equity partner at K&L Gates LLP in 2004; and, in 2012, he joined Taft Stettinius & Hollister LLP as partner.

In addition to his legal career, Grady held leadership positions at the Lloyd A. Fry Foundation, serving as treasurer, vice president, and director beginning in 2015. He also served on the boards of Pepper Construction Group, the American Bar Association’s Retirement Funds, the Building Owners and Managers Association of Chicago, the Smithsonian Institute’s National Postal Museum Advisory Council, the Chicago Public Library Foundation, the Chicago Parks Foundation, and the Shriver Center on Poverty. In 2020, he became a founding board member for the Chicago Emerging Minority Developer Initiative.

Grady’s numerous honors include the Maurice Weigle Public Service Award and the Earl B. Dickerson Public Service Award from the Chicago Bar Association; Chicago United’s Business Leader of Color Award in 2011; the Doris B. and Marshall M. Holleb Community Service Award from Lambda Alpha International, Inc., in 2019; and Private Company Director magazine’s Director to Watch Award in 2021. He was also named to Ebony magazine’s 30 Under 30 list and appeared on several of Crain’s Chicago Business’s recognition lists between 2020 and 2024.

He is married to Robin Accola and resides in Chicago, Illinois.

Graham C. Grady was interviewed by The HistoryMakers on April 3, 2023.

Magazine editor Amy DuBois Barnett was born on September 5, 1969 in Hyde Park, Chicago, Illinois to Marguerite Ross and Stephen Barnett. In 1991, she received her B.A. degree in political science and French from Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island. She attended Parsons School of Design at the New School in New York City, New York, where she obtained a certificate in fashion merchandising in 1993. Barnett then earned her M.F.A. degree in creative writing from Columbia University in New York City, New York in 1998. While completing her graduate degree, Barnett worked as a writer and served as managing editor at FashionPlanet.com, from 1996 to 1997. She later became senior editor of the website’s quarterly magazine, Fashion Almanac.

Barnett was hired to work as the fashion and beauty editor for Essence magazine in 1998 before being promoted to its lifestyle editor in 1999. In 2000, she was hired as editor in chief of Honey magazine’s print and digital publications. Then from 2003 to 2005, Barnett served as managing editor of Teen People magazine, making her the first African American woman in a senior editorial role at a national mainstream magazine. She was then hired in 2007 as deputy editor in chief for Harper’s Bazaar’s print and web publications, before being named as editor in chief of Ebony magazine. During her four years at Ebony, Barnett launched multiple editorial franchises, including the Ebony Beauty Awards and Black Wealth. In 2014, Barnett joined Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois as an adjunct professor of management/organizations, before being hired as an executive editor for ESPN’s The Undefeated. In 2015, Barnett left ESPN to found and became president of Polymath, LLC, a production company and consultancy. From 2017 to 2019, Barnett served as executive vice president of Entertainment Studios and chief content editor for TheGrio. She then went on to serve as senior vice president and general manager for Black Entertainment Television Digital; and, in 2022, she became the chief content editor of Outside, Inc., as well as senior advisor for the growth capital and advisory firm Bravo Mondo in 2023.

Barnett has been active in numerous organizations including serving as vice chair of the Brown Alumni Magazine board of editors from 2004 to 2009, a member of the American Society of Magazine Editors board of directors from 2010 to 2016, and as member of the Multicultural Media Correspondents Advisory Board from 2018 to 2020.

During her career, Barnett published several short fiction stories and released a self-help book titled, Get Yours! How to Have Everything You Ever Dreamed of and More, in 2007, earning a NAACP Image Award nomination for Outstanding Literary Work/Instructional Award. Barnett also received multiple awards for her creative writing and editorial work including the Media Executive of the Year Award from Target Market News in 2012 and the Trailblazer Award from the New York Association of Black Journalists.

Barnett was married and has one son, Max Robeson. They reside in Los Angeles, California.

Amy DuBois Barnett was interviewed by The HistoryMakers on March 21, 2023.

Historian Robin D.G. Kelley was born on March 12, 1962 in New York City, New York to Ananda Suttwa and Donald Sheralton Kelley. He received his B.A. degree in history from California State University, Long Beach and his Ph.D. degree in U.S. history from the University of California, Los Angeles.

In 1988, Kelley was an assistant professor of history and African American studies at Emory University. He joined the faculty at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, Michigan in 1990 and was later hired as a professor of history and Africana studies at New York University, where he became the school’s youngest full professor. In 2002, he was named chair of New York University’s history department. The following year, Kelley joined Columbia University in New York City, New York as a professor of anthropology and African American studies; and, in 2005, he was appointed acting director of the Cener for the Study of Ethnicity and Race. In 2006, he began teaching as a professor of history and American studies at the University of Southern California in Los Angeles. In 2011, he moved to the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) as a distinguished professor of history and African American studies, holding the Gary B. Nash Endowed Chair in U.S. History. Kelley received a Guggenheim Fellowship in 2014, was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2016 and became the chair of UCLA’s Department of African American Studies in 2017.

Kelley also held visiting appointments at the University of Melbourne in Australia; Columbia University; the Lincoln Center at the University of Oxford, England; Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts; Stanford University in Palo Alto, California; and the Hokkaido Summer Institute in Sapporo, Japan. He served as a scholar in residence at the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture and as the Robert L. Hess Scholar in Residence at Brooklyn College in New York.

In 1990, Kelley published his first book, Hammer and Hoe: Alabama Communists During the Great Depression. He released Race Rebels: Culture, Politics, and the Black Working Class in 1994, followed by Into the Fire: African Americans Since 1970 in 1996 and Yo’ Mama’s Disfunktional!: Fighting the Culture Wars in Urban America in 1997. Kelley co-authored We Changed the World: African Americans, 1945–1970 with Vincent Harding and Earl Lewis, and in 2001, he collaborated with Howard Zinn and Dana Frank on Three Strikes: The Fighting Spirit of Labor’s Last Century. He published Freedom Dreams: The Black Radical Imagination in 2002; Thelonious Monk: The Life and Times of an American Original in 2009; and Africa Speaks, America Answers: Modern Jazz in Revolutionary Times in 2012. Several of his books have been translated into Japanese.

Kelley received the Nicolás Guillén Lifetime Achievement Award from the Caribbean Philosophical Association and the Freedom Scholars Award from the Marguerite Casey Foundation.

He and his wife, LisaGay Hamilton, reside in Beverly Hills, California.

Robin D.G. Kelley was interviewed by The HistoryMakers on March 20, 2023.

Talent agent and producer Charles D. King was born on July 30, 1969 in Harlem, New York City, New York to Frances Minus King and Dr. Winton King. He received his B.A. degree in political science and government from Vanderbilt University in 1991 and his J.D. degree from Howard University School of Law in 1996.

King began working in 1991at the paper producer, Champion International as a salesperson in the newsprint division. After graduating from law school, he worked as a law clerk for the online service provider, America Online, before relocating to Los Angeles, California to pursue a career in entertainment. In 1997, he secured an entry-level position at the William Morris Agency and over the years became the first African American person to rise from the mailroom to film and television agent. King’s clients included Missy Elliot, Tyler Perry, and the film director Tim Story. He was named vice president in 2004 and senior vice president in 2008; and, then in 2009, following the merger of the William Morris Agency and its rival, Endeavor, King was made promoted to partner at William Morris Endeavor. He left in 2015 to found his own film production company, MACRO that targeted diverse audiences. His work has included MACRO’s films include Fences, Mudbound, Sorry to Bother You, and Judas and the Black Messiah.

In 2017, King joined the board of the Sundance Institute. He also served on the inaugural board of THINK450, a licensing and business development entity affiliated with the National Basketball Players Association. King received a Trailblazer Award from Black Entertainment Sports Lawyers and from Howard University School of Law. He earned an honorary Doctor of Humane Letters from Howard University and a Howard University Distinguished Alumni Award.

King has been named twice to Ebony magazine’s Power 100 and , Variety 500lists as well as included on , The Hollywood Reporter’s 100 Most Powerful People in Hollywood, Fast Company’s Most Creative People in Business, The Grio’s 100, Black Enterprise’s The Hot List: Most Powerful Players and Top 50 Power Brokers in Hollywood, Fortune magazine’s Most Influential African Americans, Latinos, & Asian Americans, Fade In’s Top 100 People in Hollywood You Need to Know, and The Hollywood Reporter’s 35 under 25. He also received the Honors Industry Leadership Award from the American Black Film Festival, the PGA Vision Award, HPA League Honors from the Hollywood Professional Association, the Innovators and Leaders Award from The Culture Creators, the North Star Award from the National Cares Mentoring Movement, the Game Changer Award from the New Global Paradigm Symposium, the Catalyst Award at the Eighth Annual ADCOLOR Conference and Awards, and the Joseph Papp Racial Harmony Award from the Foundation for Ethnic Understanding.

King and his wife, Stacey, live in Los Angeles, California. They have two children, Noah and Julian.

Charles D. King was interviewed by The HistoryMakers on March 22, 2023.