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Caryl Phillips is a British writer with a Caribbean background, best known as a novelist. He is now professor at Yale University and a visiting professor at Barnard College of Columbia University. He has tackled themes on the African slave trade from many angles. His work has been recognized by numerous awards including the Martin Luther King Memorial Prize, a Guggenheim Fellowship, the 1993 James Tait Black Memorial Prize for Crossing the River and the 2004 Commonwealth Writers' Prize Best Book award for A Distant Shore.

Danticat is the first Haitian woman to compose a novel entirely in English, and she is also the first author to bring the Haitian/American experience to American literature. Edwidge Danticat is an award-winning Haitian-born writer who now lives in Miami. In *Brother, I'm Dying*, she told the devastating story of her 81-year-old uncle, Reverend Joseph Dantica's death in the custody of immigration officials. He had arrived from Haiti seeking political asyslum following threats on his life. Denied his medicines and accused of faking an illness, he died just days after his detention. Her latest book, *Create Dangerously*, reflects on her responsibility as an immigrant artist in the United States toward her native country, especially at this time when impoverished Haiti is suffering the devastation of earthquake and disease.

Colson Whitehead was born in New York City. His first novel, *The Intuitionist*, won the QPB New Voices Award and was an Ernest Hemingway/PEN Award finalist. His second novel, *John Henry Days*, was a Pulitzer Prize Finalist, a National Book Critics Circle Award Finalist and a New York Times Book Review Editors' Choice. He is also the recipient of a Whiting Writers' Award. Whitehead lives in Brooklyn, New York.

Gail Snowden heads the Community Investment Group (CIG) within FleetBoston Financial and is a member of the company's Leadership Advisory Group, comprised of the top 36 executives. She directs and invests the bank's resources into low and moderate-income communities through the delivery of innovative financial services, wealth and equity creation programs. Ms. Snowden oversees a diverse group of business units that includes Fleet Community Bank Small Business Services, Fleet Development Ventures, established as the first urban investment bank in America chartered by a commercial bank, and Commercial Real Estate Lending. Recognition for FleetBoston Financial's approach to low and moderate-income markets has included winning the 1998 Presidential Ron Brown Award and a profile on Ms. Snowden in* Fortune* magazine's March 1998 feature article, "Banking in Urban America". Most recently, Ms. Snowden was appointed President of the FleetBoston Financial Foundation, one of the nation's largest financial services philanthropic organizations and named Outstanding Corporate Philanthropist in 1999. In this additional role, she will set strategy at an international, national and regional level for Fleet's $25 million philanthropy portfolio, and will be responsible for all charitable giving at the Bank. She is a recipient of numerous awards including: the Abigail Adams Award (2001), honorary Doctor of Public Service degrees from Simmons College (2001) and Bridgewater State College (1997), an honorary Doctor of Law degree from Babson College (1998), Doctor of Humane Letters from Emmanuel College (1998), the 1996 YWCA Academy of Women Achievers Award and the 1992 SBA Small Business Minority Advocate of the Year. She was selected as an Outstanding Member of both the Boston Urban Bankers Forum and the Urban Financial Services Coalition (formerly the National Association of Urban Bankers). She also received the YMCA Black Achievers Award, the Simmons College Alumnae Achievement Award and the New England Women's Leadership Award. A frequent local and national public speaker, she was named one of the nation's Top Business and Professional Woman by *Dollars and Sense* magazine and one of 50 African-American Women at the top in corporate America in the March 2001 issue of *Ebony *magazine. Ms. Snowden is a 1967 graduate of Harvard/Radcliffe College and earned an MBA from Simmons Graduate School of Management in 1978. She currently resides in Jamaica Plain, Massachusetts.

From 1983 until 2004, Jenkins-Scott served as the President and Chief Executive Officer of the Dimock Community Health Center in Roxbury, Massachusetts. Prior to joining Dimock, she held several positions with the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, Departments of Public and Mental Health. As a community leader, public health advocate and innovative administrator, she has been a nationally known figure for nearly thirty years. Jenkins-Scott has served on many professional, civic and community boards and committees. She currently serves on the Board of Directors of The Boston Foundation, the Kennedy Library Foundation and Museum, the Boston Plan for Excellence, WGBH, the National Board of Jumpstart and the Council on Social Work Education. She also serves on the Board of Directors of Century Bank and Trust Company and the Tufts Health Plan. In April 2007, Boston's Mayor Thomas M. Menino selected Jenkins-Scott to Co-Chair his School Readiness Action Planning Team, charged with developing specific strategies to prevent the achievement gap among the next generation of students. Jenkins-Scott has received numerous awards and citations including the 2005 Associated Industries of Massachusetts Legacy of Leadership award, 2004 Pinnacle Lifetime Achievement Award from the Greater Boston Chamber of Commerce and the 2004 Distinguished Alumni Award from Boston University.

Raymond Hammond is the senior pastor of Bethel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Boston. He is a graduate of Harvard College and Harvard Medical School. Hammond is the president of the Ten Point Coalition, an ecumenical group of clergy and lay leaders working to mobilize the greater Boston community around issues affecting black and Latino youth--especially those at-risk for violence, drug abuse, and other destructive behaviors. He is also the Executive Director of Bethel's Youth Intervention Project; and a member of several church and community boards, including the Black Ministerial Alliance Executive Committee, the Youth Ministry Development Project Advisory Board, the Boston Plan for Excellence, Catholic Charities of Boston, Minuteman Council (Boston, MA) of the Boy Scouts of America, City Year of Boston Advisory Committee, and the United Way Success by Six Leadership Council. Finally, he is a member of the Advisory Board of the Alliance for Marriage, a diverse, non-partisan coalition composed of civil rights and religious leaders, as well as national legal experts, that is dedicated to restoring a culture of intact families founded upon marriage in America.

Ellen has been a professional archaeologist for 22 years in New England and a Boston City Archaeologist for the last 12 years. She also works as a live-in caretaker for Boston's oldest house, the Blake House, circa 1661.

Martin Luther King Jr. was born January 15, 1929 in Atlanta, Georgia. King was an American clergyman, activist and prominent leader in the African-American civil rights movement. His main legacy was to secure progress on civil rights in the United States and he is frequently referenced as a human rights icon today. A Baptist minister, King became a civil rights activist early in his career. He led the 1955 Montgomery Bus Boycott and helped found the Southern Christian Leadership Conference in 1957, serving as its first president. King's efforts led to the 1963 March on Washington, where King delivered his "I Have a Dream" speech. There, he raised public consciousness of the civil rights movement and established himself as one of the greatest orators in US history. In 1964, King became the youngest person to receive the Nobel Peace Prize for his work to end racial segregation and racial discrimination through civil disobedience and other non violent means. By the time of his death in 1968, he had refocused his efforts on ending poverty and opposing the Vietnam War, both from a religious perspective. King was assassinated on April 4, 1968, in Memphis, Tennessee. He was posthumously awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1977 and Congressional Gold Medal in 2004; Martin Luther King, Jr. Day was established as a U.S. national holiday in 1986.