Tara Roberts is a National Geographic Storytelling Fellow and former fellow at Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Open Documentary Lab. She is an editor and storyteller who has spent over two decades amplifying and sharing the stories of girls and women along with African Americans.

Bernard Powers is the founding director of the College of Charleston’s Center for the Study of Slavery and a professor emeritus of history at the university. He’s an expert on African American history and culture and the role of slavery in American history.

Dennis Smith is an associate professor of history and director of Native American studies at the University of Nebraska, Omaha.

Leah Wright Rigueur is an associate professor of Public Policy at the Harvard Kennedy School, and a visiting associate professor/Harry S. Truman Associate Professor of American History at Brandeis University.

Tiya Miles is a professor of history at Harvard University. Her new book, “All That She Carried: The Journey of Ashley’s Sack, a Black Family Keepsake,” traces a gift from an enslaved mother to her daughter as it passed through the generations.

Hua Hsu is an assistant professor of English and director of American Studies at Vassar College and a staff writer at The New Yorker.

Mae Ngai is the Lung Family Professor of Asian American Studies and professor of history at Columbia University.