Born in Arkansas in 1918, John H. Johnson went on to attend the University of Chicago and work part time for the Supreme Life Insurance Co. before producing his own publication called the Negro Digest (later Black World) in 1942. Eventually he founded the Johnson Publishing Co which launched Ebony in 1945, the number-one African American magazine worldwide every year, and Jet in 1951, the world’s most widely circulated African American news weekly magazine. Johnson went on to become chairman and CEO of Supreme Life Insurance along with owning several cosmetics brands. He was the recipient of the Spingarn Medal to the Most Outstanding Black Publisher in History Award from the National Newspaper Publishers Association. President Bill Clinton awarded Johnson with the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1996. He died in 2005.

 Linda Johnson Rice is an influential executive in the business world and an uplifting voice for the next generation of creative business leaders. It is her life’s mission to highlight the positive power and uniqueness of the black experience. Rice’s rare mixture of executive presence and creative talent make her a unique asset, whether she’s managing a media or beauty brand—as she has done in the past — or leading the Chicago Public Library Board as President. In 2002, as chairman and CEO of Johnson Publishing Company, Rice became the first African American female CEO among the top five of the Black Enterprise 100s largest black-owned companies. Linda also serves on several philanthropic boards, as well as the Board of Directors of the Omnicom Group and Enova.

David Hartt is an artist and educator working across media to examine the transformation of ideas and histories over time. He is an associate professor at the University of Pennsylvania in the Department of Fine Arts.

Theaster Gates has exhibited and performed at the Albuquerque Foundation, Sintra, Portugal (2024); The LUMA Foundation, Arles, France (2023, 2024); The New Museum, New York, (2022); The Aichi Triennial, Tokoname (2022); The Serpentine Pavilion, London (2022); The Victoria and Albert Museum, London, UK (2021); Whitechapel Gallery, London, UK (2013 and 2021); Tate Liverpool, UK (2020); Haus der Kunst, Munich (2020); Walker Art Center, Minneapolis (2019); Palais de Tokyo Paris, France (2019); National Gallery of Art, Washington D.C., USA (2017); and dOCUMENTA (13), Kassel, Germany (2012) among many others. He is the recipient of numerous awards and honorary degrees including the Guggenheim Fellowship (2025); Isamu Noguchi Award (2023); and Artes Mundi 6 Prize (2015). Gates is a professor at the University of Chicago in the Department of Visual Arts as well as the Director of Artists Initiatives at the Lunder Institute for American Art at Colby College Museum of Art.