Jelani Cobb is the current Dean of Columbia's Graduate School of Journalism. He is a staff writer at The New Yorker, author of several books, including The Substance of Hope: Barack Obama and the Paradox of Progress and To the Break of Dawn: A Freestyle on the Hip Hop Aesthetic. He is the editor/co-editor on multiple volumes including The Matter of Black Lives and The Essential Kerner Commission Report. Dr. Cobb is the producer/co-producer on documentaries including The Riot Report. He received the Peabody Award in 2020 and was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in Commentary. Dr. Cobb currently serves on the Board of Directors of the American Journalism Project and the Board of Trustees of the New York Public Library. His latest book, Three or More Is a Riot: Notes on How We Got Here: 2012-2025, was published in October.

Hampton Fluker can be seen in a series regular role on the forthcoming AMC series The Terror: Devil in Silver. Additional recent credits include a recurring arc on NBC’s Chicago Med and an appearance on CBS’s Watson as well as the Off-Broadway play Staff Meal at Playwrights Horizons. Hampton starred as Marcus Tufo on the NBC series Shades of Blue opposite Jennifer Lopez. Additional television credits include arcs on Evil, The Good Wife, and Major Crimes, along with roles on Prodigal Son, Bull, The Code, Blue Bloods, Aquarius, and Whitney directed by Angela Bassett. His film credits include Instant Family starring Mark Wahlberg and Rose Byrne, Patriots Day starring Mark Wahlberg, The Blind Side starring Sandra Bullock, and the independent features No One Asked Me and The Depths. On stage, Hampton starred opposite Annette Bening and Tracy Letts in the Broadway revival of All My Sons. For his performance, Hampton earned Theatre World’s Dorothy Loudon Award for Excellence in Theatre and also received a Drama Desk Nomination for Outstanding Featured Actor in a Play. Fluker also starred in Jiréh Breon's Too Heavy for Your Pocket at the Roundabout Theatre and Esai’s Table at The Cherry Lane Theatre. He is a graduate of Boston University.

Dion Graham, from HBO’s The Wire, also narrates The First 48 and After the First 48 on A&E. An award-winning and critically acclaimed actor and narrator, his film and television credits include The History of Sound, The Blacklist, Madam Secretary, the Law & Order franchise, and Malcolm X, as well as voice work with the Star Wars video game franchise, The Atlanta Child Murders, Art of the Heist, and American Experience on PBS. Graham’s extensive stage credits include performances at the Roundabout; Circle in the Square; Lincoln Center; The Kennedy Center in Washington, DC; the Edinburgh International Festival; The Royal National Theater in London; and on Broadway. His performances have been praised as thoughtful and compelling, vivid and full of life.

Nikole Hannah-Jones is the Pulitzer Prize–winning creator of the 1619 Project and a staff writer at The New York Times Magazine. The book version of The 1619 Project, as well as the 1619 Project children’s book, Born on the Water, were instant #1 New York Times bestsellers. Her 1619 Project is now a six-part docuseries on Hulu and won an Emmy Award for Outstanding Documentary or Nonfiction Series. Hannah-Jones has spent her career investigating racial inequality and injustice, and her reporting has earned her the MacArthur Fellowship, known as the Genius grant, a Peabody Award, two George Polk Awards and the National Magazine Award three times. She also serves as the Knight Chair of Race and Journalism at Howard University, where she founded the Center for Journalism & Democracy, and is the co-founder of the Ida B. Wells Society for Investigative Reporting, which seeks to increase the number of investigative reporters and editors of color. In 2022 she opened the 1619 Freedom School, a free afterschool literacy program in her hometown of Waterloo, Iowa. Hannah-Jones holds a Master of Arts in Mass Communication from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and earned her Bachelor of Arts in History and African-American studies from the University of Notre Dame.

James Ijames is a Pulitzer Prize–winning and Tony Award–nominated playwright, director, and educator. James’ plays have been produced by Flashpoint Theater Company, Orbiter 3, Theatre Horizon, Wilma Theatre, Theatre Exile, Azuka Theatre, The National Black Theatre, JACK, The Public Theater, Hudson Valley Shakespeare Theater, Steppenwolf Theatre, Definition Theatre, Timeline Theater, Shotgun Players, and have received development with PlayPenn New Play Conference, The Lark, Playwrights Horizons, Clubbed Thumb, Villanova Theater, Wilma Theater, Azuka Theatre, and Victory Garden. James received the 2011 F. Otto Haas Award for an Emerging Artist and two Barrymore Awards for Outstanding Direction of a Play for The Brothers Size with Simpatico Theatre Company and Gem of the Ocean with Arden Theatre. James is a 2015 Pew Fellow for Playwriting, the 2015 winner of the Terrence McNally New Play Award for WHITE, the 2015 Kesselring Honorable Mention Prize winner for The Most Spectacularly Lamentable Trial of Miz Martha Washington, a 2017 recipient of the Whiting Award, a 2019 Kesselring Prize for Kill Move Paradise, a 2020 and 2022 Steinberg Prize, and the 2022 Pulitzer Prize in Drama recipient and a 2023 Tony nominee for Best Play for Fat Ham. James was a founding member of Orbiter 3, Philadelphia’s first playwright producing collective. He received a B.A. in Drama from Morehouse College in Atlanta, Georgia, and an M.F.A. in Acting from Temple University in Philadelphia, PA. James is an Associate Professor of Theatre at Columbia University.

Joe Morton is an Emmy Award–winning television, film, and stage veteran, best known as Rowan/Eli Pope in Shonda Rhimes' groundbreaking series Scandal. In film, Morton is widely recognized as the mute alien in John Sayles’ The Brother from Another Planet, and as the ill-fated scientist, Miles Dyson, in Terminator 2: Judgment Day. Other notable film credits include: Speed, Of Mice and Men, Ali, Blues Brothers 2000, and as Cyborg‘s dad, Dr. Silas Stone, in Batman vs Superman: Dawn of Justice and the Justice League franchise. Morton made his Broadway debut in the Tony Award–winning musical Hair, followed by a starring role in Raisin, for which he garnered a Tony nomination and Theatre World Award. In 2016, Morton returned to his theater roots portraying the iconic comedian/activist Dick Gregory in the one-man show Turn Me Loose off-Broadway and was honored with the Lucille Lortel Award for Outstanding Lead Performer in a Play and the NAACP Theatre Lifetime Achievement Award, among many others. He is also a recipient of an Audie, the Audible Award, for his reading of Ta-Nehisi Coates’ The Water Dancer. Currently, Morton can be seen on the Fox comedy series Going Dutch with Denis Leary.

Dr. Ilyasah Shabazz is an award-winning author, educator, and producer. She has authored five historical novels, served as project advisor for the PBS award-winning film Prince Among Slaves documentary, and is currently producing a television series based on her latest publication, The Awakening of Malcolm X, with Sony Pictures Television, Tri-Star, alongside a new 2026 publication release with Legacy Lit, Hachette Book Group. She is the Board of Directors Chairwoman of the Malcolm X & Dr. Betty Shabazz Memorial and Educational Center. In her work to preserve the legacy of her parents, she has dedicated herself to institution-building and intergenerational leadership development with the tenants of accessibility, fairness, and belonging. Dr. Shabazz has furthered her community impact with the City University of New York’s Office of Academic Affairs, where she created curriculum to encourage higher education for underserved and marginalized high school students. She has worked with the Office of the Mayor in Mount Vernon, New York, as Director of Public Affairs & Special Events. She founded and produced a young adult development program to provide historical context on social justice—encouraging personal empowerment and civic engagement. As an entrepreneur, she produces a variety of forums dedicated to power, possibility, and sovereignty. Dr. Shabazz is a member of the Soar Higher Cabinet Committee for SUNY @ New Paltz College; a member of the Advisory Council for the Equal Rights Amendment Coalition; a member of Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, Inc; and she serves as a Trustee for the Harlem Symphony Orchestra. Dr. Shabazz holds a Master of Science in Education & Human Resource Development from Fordham University, a Bachelor of Science in Biology from SUNY @ New Paltz, and an adjunct professor at John Jay College of Criminal Justice in New York City. In recognition of her outstanding achievements in Public Service, Education, and the Arts—Worcester State University conferred Ms. Shabazz with a Doctor of Humane Letters degree. As their inaugural Human Rights & Social Impact Fellow, Shabazz teaches the course “We The People.” Grounded in the commitments of her parents, Dr. Shabazz emphasizes empowerment and inclusion in her teaching and scholarship.

Alex Haley (1921 – 1992) is the world-renowned author of Roots, which has sold more than eight million hardcover copies and translated into 37 languages. When Roots was presented as a television miniseries in 1977, its seven-night run drew more than 130 million watchers—the greatest program audience in television history. Haley won a special Pulitzer Prize for the work in 1977 in addition to the National Book Award. In 1963, Haley’s interviews with Malcolm X for Playboy led to The Autobiography of Malcolm X. Published in 1965, the book became a sensation and was later named by Time magazine as one of the ten most important nonfiction books of the 20th century. The book was translated into eight languages and has sold more than 8 million copies.

Malcolm X (1925 – 1965) was a human rights activist, Muslim minister, and a prominent figure during the Civil Rights Movement. In 1957, he founded the Nation of Islam newspaper Muhammad Speaks. During the 1960s, Malcolm X participated in numerous debates, including forums on radio stations, the television programs Open Mind and The Mike Wallace News Program, and at Harvard Law School, Howard University, and Columbia University. On June 29, 1963, Malcolm X led one of the nation’s largest civil rights events, the Unity Rally in Harlem. In March 1964, he formed the Muslim Mosque, Inc., and the Organizations of Afro-American Unity. On February 21, 1965, Malcolm X was assassinated in Harlem, New York. His autobiography, which he wrote with writer Alex Haley, was published in November 1965.