Born and raised in Southern California, Brit Bennett earned her MFA in fiction at the University of Michigan. Her debut novel, The Mothers, was a New York Times bestseller, and her second novel, The Vanishing Half, was an instant #1 New York Times bestseller. Her essays have been featured in The New Yorker, the New York Times Magazine, The Paris Review, and Jezebel.

Teagle F. Bougere recently portrayed James Baldwin in The American Vicarious production of Debate: Baldwin vs. Buckley, in New York City, Chicago, Florence, and London. He co-starred with Catherine Zeta-Jones in the television series Queen America. Bougere's Broadway credits include The Crucible, A Raisin in the Sun, and The Tempest. He was featured in The Public Theater’s productions of Socrates and the much acclaimed production of Coriolanus in Central Park. His most recent New York stage appearance was the world premiere of The New Englanders at Manhattan Theater Club. Additional theater credits include Is God Is at SoHo Rep, Beast in the Jungle, the title role in the stage adaptation of Ralph Ellison’s novel Invisible Man at The Court Theater in Chicago, The Studio Theatre in Washington, D.C., and The Huntington in Boston, Julius Caesar and Cymbeline for The Public Theater in Central Park, A Soldier’s Play at Second Stage, A Fair Country at Lincoln Center, Last Dance for Sybil (with Ruby Dee) at the New Federal Theatre, An Iliad (one-man show) at the Pittsburgh Public Theater, and Joe Turner’s Come and Gone and Blue Door at Berkeley Rep. His film and television credits include Hill ’n’ Gully, The Path, The Mist, Good Friday, Conviction, Cosby, The Job, Third Watch, Murder in Black and White, A Night at the Museum, The Imposters, The Pelican Brief, Two Weeks Notice, What the Deaf Man Heard, A Gifted Man, The Big C, The Blacklist, and Bull, as well as seven episodes for the Law & Order franchise.

Annette Gordon-Reed is the Carl M. Loeb University Professor at Harvard University. The author of the Pulitzer Prize–winning biography The Hemingses of Monticello, she lives in New York and Cambridge.

Nichelle Lewis just finished starring as Sarah in the acclaimed concert staging of Ragtime at City Center. She made her Broadway debut earlier this year as Dorothy in the revival of The Wiz, earning a Theater World Award for Outstanding Broadway Debut as well as a Drama League nomination. In 2023, Variety named Lewis one of their 10 Broadway Stars to Watch. Previous credits include the national tour of Hairspray and Labelless at Cincinnati Playhouse in the Park. Follow her at @iamnichellelewis.

Mychal Denzel Smith is the author of the New York Times bestseller Invisible Man, Got the Whole World Watching: A Young Black Man's Education and Stakes Is High, winner of the Kirkus Prize for Nonfiction. He is a Distinguished Writer-in-Residence at Hunter College. His work has appeared in The New York Times, The Atlantic, Washington Post, Harper’s, The Believer, Esquire, Bookforum, Oxford American, New Republic, GQ, and more.

James Baldwin (1924 – 1987) was a writer and civil rights activist. He wrote more than a dozen novels and essay collections, including Go Tell It on the Mountain, Giovanni’s Room, Notes of a Native Son, The Fire Next Time, No Name in the Street, and If Beale Street Could Talk. Though he expatriated to Paris in 1948, Baldwin’s work deals primarily with the social and cultural issues of being black and homosexual in America before and during the civil rights movement. His unfinished work, Remember This House, was adapted into the award-winning documentary I Am Not Your Negro in 2016, and a film adaptation of If Beale Street Could Talk was released in 2018. Today his legacy lives on through the National James Baldwin Literary Society and the James Baldwin Scholars program at Hampshire College.