National Advisory Board

Michael H. Frisch
Professor of History & American Studies, University at Buffalo 

Henry Louis “Skip” Gates
Alphonse Fletcher Universit Professor, Director of W.E.B. DuBois Institute for African and African American Research at Harvard University 

Barbara Radner
Director, DePaul University Center for Urban Education 

Lekan A. Ayanbule
Vice President Analytics & Design Group, JP Morgan Chase Bank 

Robert Graham
Partner, Jenner & Block 

Karen Hardwick
President, The Hardwick Group LLC 

Ingrid Saunders Jones
Senior Vice President, The Coca-Cola Company 

Dana Rice
Consultant  

Reuben Cannon
Producer and Casting Director 

Donald J. Jackson
President, Central City Productions, Inc. 

Katherine Lauderdale
Senior Vice President and General Counsel, Public Broadcasting Service 

Roland Martin
CNN/TV One Cable Network Commentator  

Esther Franklin, Chair
EVP, Director of Cultural Identities, Starcom MediaVest Group 

William Griffin
President, Hip Hop On Demand 

Cynthia Stamstad
Digital Media Expert 

Linda Stewart
Strategic Marketing Consultant, Russell Williams Group 

Brenda Russell Williams
President, Russell Williams Group  

Lonnie G. Bunch
Director, National Museum of African American History & Culture, Smithsonian Institution 

Mary Marshall Clark
Director, Oral History Research Office of Columbia University 

Howard Dodson
Chief, Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture 

Russell Lewis
Executive Vice President and Chief Historian, Chicago History Museum 

James Lindner
Founder & Chairman of the Board, Media Matters LLC, SAMMA Systems, Inc. 

James Briggs Murray
Curator, Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture 

Howard Wactlar
Director of the CISE Division of Information and Intelligent Systems, National Science Foundation 

John Unsworth
Dean and Professor, Graduate School of Library and Information Sciences, University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign  

Clarence Avant
Recording Executive, Former Chairman of Motown Records 

Dr. Henry Betts
Physician, Chairman of the Rehabilitation Institute of Chicago Foundation 

Thomas W. Dortch, Jr.
President and CEO of TWD, Inc 

Willie Iles
Group Director, Development, Boy Scouts of America 

The Honorable Emil Jones, Jr.
Former State Senate, State of Illinois 

Barbara McKinzie
Centennial National President, Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority, Inc. 

Cornell Leverette Moore
Grand Sire Archon, Sigma Pi Phi Fraternity Omicron Boule 

Dionne Warwick
Entertainer 

Peyton Williams
Executive Secretary, Sigma Pi Phi Fraternity