Clayborne Carson is a Stanford University historian. In 1985 Coretta Scott King entrusted him with editing and publishing the papers of her late husband. Carson is the founding director of the Martin Luther King, Jr., Research and Education Institute at Stanford University.

David J. Garrow is an American historian and professor. He was the senior adviser for the award-winning TV series Eyes on the Prize. Gill is also the author of Liberty and Sexuality, a history of the legal struggles surrounding reproductive rights in the United States before the Roe v. Wade decision.

Gerald Gill was one of the most beloved and highly regarded professors in the history of Tufts University. In addition to his work as an educator and historian, he served as a consultant on the award-winning TV series Eyes on the Prize. He was voted Professor of the Year for Massachusetts twice. Gill passed away in 2007.

Vincent Harding was a social activist and historian best known for his work with his personal friend Martin Luther King Jr. He was the co-chairperson of the social unity group Veterans of Hope Project. In the 1960s, he and his wife Rosemarie—both devout Mennonites themselves—cofounded Mennonite House, an interracial voluntary service center in Atlanta. He passed away in 2014.

Darlene Clark Hine is the John A. Hannah Professor of American History at Michigan State University and a leading expert on the intersection of race, class, and gender in American society. Co-editor of Black Women in America: An Historical Encyclopedia, she is the author of Hine Sight: Black Women and the Re-Construction of American History, a book of essays. She lives in East Lansing, Michigan.