Ajamu Dillahunt-Holloway is an Assistant Professor of African American History and Public History at NC State University. His research is on twentieth century African American history with a focus on the U.S. South, labor, environmental justice, and the Black Freedom Struggle. Dillahunt-Holloway’s research and commitment to making the world a better place has allowed him to travel to South Africa, Cuba, Palestine, and Senegal. 

At present, he is a board member of the Interreligious Foundation of Community Organizations (IFCO), the North Carolina Environmental Justice Network (NCEJN), and Democracy North Carolina. Dillahunt-Holloway is also part of the City of Raleigh’s Historic Resources and Museums Advisory Board, and the North Carolina Highway Historical Marker Advisory Committee. At present, Dillahunt-Holloway is at work on a book tentatively titled The South Will Never Be the Same: The History of Black Workers for Justice, Black Liberation, and Southern Labor. Dillahunt-Holloway earned his Ph.D. in History from Michigan State University in 2023. He holds a B.A. in History and a B.A. in Political Science from North Carolina Central University.

Angeline Echeverría is the Director of Affiliate Sustainability for the National Domestic Workers Alliance (NDWA), coordinating capacity-building and organizational development for support for dozens of independent domestic worker organizations in cities across the country. Angeline is a passionate advocate for immigrant and worker rights, reproductive justice, and intergenerational organizing. Prior to joining NDWA, Angeline provided member recruitment, retention, and support for the NC Counts Coalition; served as the executive director for El Pueblo; and served in different capacities for women’s and immigrant workers’ organizing in the southeast and beyond.

 

Angeline credits Durham-based Student Action with Farmworkers for starting them on the path to social justice work through an undergraduate internship program they participated in while earning a BA in Latin American Studies from the University of South Carolina-Columbia. Angeline’s roots are in Cuba, upstate New York, and South Carolina and they have lived in Raleigh since 2012. Outside of work, Angeline enjoys Zumba, soccer, and spending time outdoors.

Raúl Gámez recently earned his Ph.D. in higher education from the Center for the Study of Higher and Postsecondary Education at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor.  Raúl’s research focuses on understanding the role of diversity, equity, and inclusion work in higher education as a mechanism for achieving racial equity. He earned an MA in Higher Education Administration from the University of Michigan and a BA in Theatre Arts and Translation and Interpretation Studies from California State University, Long Beach. Before enrolling in graduate school, Raúl worked as the Migrant Youth Director with Student Action with Farmworkers working with migrant and immigrant youth in North Carolina. Raúl utilized theatre, art, and popular education as tools for leadership development with migrant youth and their family. He also coordinated the Adelante Education Coalition, a statewide coalition in North Carolina focused on increasing access to education for Latino and immigrant students and their families.

Robert Korstad is Emeritus Professor of Public Policy and History at Duke University. He received his B.A. and PhD from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. His research interests include twentieth century U. S. history, labor history, African American history, and contemporary social policy.

 

His publications include: Fragile Democracy: The Struggle Over Race and Voting Rights in North Carolina (coauthor, University of North Carolina Press, 2020); To Right These Wrongs: The North Carolina Fund and the Battle to End Poverty and Inequality in 1960s America (coauthor, University of North Carolina Press, 2010); Civil Rights Unionism: Tobacco Workers and the Struggle for Democracy in the Mid-Twentieth-Century South (University of North Carolina Press, 2003); Remembering Jim Crow: African Americans Talk About Life in the Segregated South (coeditor, The New Press, 2001); Like a Family: The Making of a Southern Cotton Mill World (coauthor, University of North Carolina Press, revised edition, 2000).

Chris Kromm is executive director of the Institute for Southern Studies, a nonprofit media, research, and education center founded by civil rights veterans based in Durham, N.C. Chris also serves as publisher of Facing South, the Institute’s online magazine. Chris is the author or co-author of more than 70 Institute reports on Southern issues and trends including labor, democracy, politics, and demographic change, and has appeared on more than 300 local, state, and national broadcast outlets including CNN, C-SPAN, MSNBC, NPR, and XM Radio. Chris was a founding board member of N.C. Asian Americans Together and Progress North Carolina.

Under Chris’ leadership, the Institute has been recognized with several prestigious honors and awards, including the George Polk Award for Magazine Reporting, a North Carolina Justice Center Defenders of Justice Award for Policy Research and Advocacy, a Harry Chapin Media Award for coverage of poverty issues, an Investigative Reporting award from the North Carolina Press Association, and honors from the National Press Club, Society of Professional Journalists, and the White House Correspondents’ Association.

Steve Lownes is an Associate Professor of World Languages at the University of South Carolina-Union where he teaches Spanish, Portuguese, Latin American Studies, Comparative Literature, South Carolina Studies and courses with a heavy emphasis on internships and service-learning.

Formerly, he was the Assistant Director of the Latin American and Caribbean Studies Institute at the University of Georgia, administering $1.9 million for the Federal Department of Education’s Title VI National Resource Center and Foreign Language and Area Studies grants. He has lived, conducted research, and worked in Spain, Argentina, and Brazil. He is an American Translators Associate (ATA) certified translator. Lownes earned his PhD in Spanish and Portuguese from the Ohio State University in 2018, MA in Public Policy and Management in 2013, also from the Ohio State University, and a B.A. (2005) and MA (2007) in Spanish from the University of South Carolina. He lives with his wife and three children in South Carolina.

Charles W. McKinney, Jr. is Professor of History at Rhodes College in Memphis, Tennessee. His areas of interest include the civil rights movement, the confluence of Black Power and civil rights ideology, and the creation of social change institutions in poor, working class communities. He is the author of Greater Freedom: The Evolution of the Civil Rights Struggle in Wilson, North Carolina, and the co-editor of An Unseen Light: The Black Struggle for Freedom in Memphis, and From Rights to Lives: The Evolution of the Black Freedom Struggle. His writing and commentary have appeared in newspapers and information venues across the country, including the Memphis Commercial Appeal, USA Today, Wall Street Journal, Black Perspectives, The History Channel, Vanity Fair, and MLK50: Justice Through Journalism. He has provided commentary on radio programs across the country and news outlets in the United Kingdom, Europe, China and Australia, and has appeared on CNN. 

 

McKinney earned his B.A. with honors in History and English from Morehouse College in 1989, and his Ph.D. in History from Duke University, following in the footsteps of his Morehouse Mentor, Dr Marcellus Barksdale. While at Duke, he won the Samuel DuBois Cook Student Service Award and worked with a host of social justice organizations, including North Carolina Public Allies, The Institute for Southern Studies, the Fund for Southern Communities, and the Z. Smith Reynolds Foundation. In Memphis, McKinney serves as Chair of the Steering Committee for Memphis For All, a progressive voter advocacy organization. Since 2016, he has spent summers helping teachers across the nation to craft K-12 civil rights curriculum. Over the years, he has conducted trainings and workshops on movement building and grass-roots activism for union members and organizers in California, Tennessee, Mississippi and Louisiana. He is the father of three children and married to Natalie McKinney.

David Neal is an attorney with the Southern Environmental Law Center in Chapel Hill, where he focuses on clean energy policy and environmental justice. Prior to joining SELC, he had a career in indigent criminal defense work. David is the co-founder and former executive director of the Fair Trial Initiative, a non-profit that worked to improve the quality of representation received by people facing the death penalty. David serves on the boards of the Z. Smith Reynolds Foundation and Repairers of the Breach. He has previously served on the boards of the Orange County Commission for the Environment, Common Sense Foundation, NC Conservation Network, and the Proteus Fund. He completed his undergraduate degree at Oberlin College and law degree at UNC School of Law in Chapel Hill. Before law school, David worked as a Peace Corps volunteer in Turkmenistan.