Black History Month (U)

<p>Providing visionary and transformational leadership during one of the most consequential eras in our nation’s history, Sherrilyn Ifill’s voice has powerfully influenced our national dialogue on civil rights.  </p><p>Sherrilyn Ifill served as the seventh President and Director-Counsel of the NAACP Legal Defense Fund (LDF) from 2013 to 2022—the second woman to ever lead LDF—and currently serves as its President and Director-Counsel Emeritus.

<p>Daryl Davis is committed to helping people ignite positive change—using conversation to build bridges.</p><p>His jaw-dropping experiences speak for themselves. For nearly 40 years, he’s engaged leaders of the KKK and White supremacist groups face to face to find the answer to a question: “How can you hate me when you don’t even know me?” </p><p>That question stemmed from his first encounter with racism at age ten when he was pelted with rocks, bottles, and soda cans by a handful of White spectators while marching in a parade.

<p>Winner of the Pulitzer Prize, Peabody Award, and Edward R. Murrow Award, Caitlin Dickerson engages audiences on the power of journalism as a check against systemic inequality, telling stories of remarkable resilience and hope from the front lines of the world’s refugee crisis.</p><p>From Ukraine to Romania to Guatemala, Caitlin Dickerson has spent years covering people forced to live on the move for some of the nation’s foremost news outlets.

<p>Autumn Rose *Miskweminanocsqua (Raspberry Star Woman)* Williams was born and raised on the Shinnecock Reservation in Southampton, New York. She graduated from Virginia Commonwealth University with a Bachelor of Science in Mass Communications and a Minor in Business.

<p>Growing up in inner-city Newark, New Jersey, Sampson Davis and two friends made a pact to “beat the street” and become doctors—and they did it.</p><p>Today, Dr. Sampson Davis is a board-certified ER physician who has appeared on numerous talk and radio shows including <i>Oprah</i>, <i>CNN</i>, <i>The Today Show</i>, <i>Dr. Oz</i>, <i>Anderson Cooper 360</i>, <i>The View</i>, <i>Tavis Smiley</i> and <i>NPR</i>.

<p>Shaquem Griffin made history as the NFL’s first-ever one-handed player. Now he inspires others to overcome adversity and persevere.</p><p>Shaquem Griffin was born just minutes after his twin, Shaquill.

<p>Dr. Bernice Albertine King is the youngest daughter to the late civil rights leaders Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and Coretta Scott King. She was five years old when her father was assassinated in 1968. </p><p>King answered the call to ministry at the age of seventeen when she gave an address advocating against the South African apartheid to the United Nations General Assembly in New York. In 1985 and again in 1986, she was arrested with her siblings while protesting against apartheid.

<p>An award-winning actor, <i>New York Times</i> bestselling author, and philanthropist, Hill Harper is a celebrity role model with empowering messages of achievement, defining success, effective communication and how to take control of one’s future.</p><p>With seven NAACP Image awards for his work, Harper has appeared in a variety of television and film roles, including Universal Pictures’ 2015 release, <i>The Boy Next Door</i>, on USA Network’s <i>Covert Affairs</i>, and previously, from 2004 to 2013, on the CBS TV drama <i>CSI:

<p>Cliff Albright is a 2020 Soros Equality Fellow and co-founder of Black Voters Matter Fund (and BVM Capacity Building Institute) which builds community and organizational capacity related to Black voting power. </p><p>BVM received national attention in 2017 when they helped mobilize Black voters during the U.S. Senate race between Doug Jones and Roy Moore.

<p>Fredrika Newton, the daughter of activists and former member of the Black Panther Party, says she learned how to march before she learned how to walk. Activism has always been in her blood, but no one was more surprised than her the day that Black Panther Party co-founder, Huey P. Newton, showed up at her parents’ home for lunch.</p><p>Her mother, a Jewish housing activist and real estate agent for the Party, invited Huey over when Fredrika was home from college.