Deborah Willis, a leading historian and curator of African American photography and culture, is Chair and Professor of Photography and Imaging at Tisch School of the Arts at New York University. She was a MacArthur Fellow, a Guggenheim Fellow, and a Fletcher Fellow. Her co-authored book, Michelle Obama: The First Lady in Photographs, received the 2010 NAACP Image Award for Outstanding Literary Work-Biography/Autobiography. Her most recent books are Posing Beauty: African American Images from the 1890s to the Present and Black Venus 2010: They Called Her "Hottentot" (Temple).

Barbara Krauthamer is Assistant Professor of History at the University of Massachusetts-Amherst. She is the author of Black Slaves, Indian Masters: Slavery, Emancipation, and Citizenship in the Native American South as well as many articles and essays on the history of slavery and emancipation. She has received fellowships and awards from the Association of Black Women Historians, the National Endowment for the Humanities, Stanford University, the University of Texas at Austin, Yale University, and the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture.