Ericka Huggins is an educator, Black Panther Party member, former political prisoner, ally, and poet. For 35 years, Ericka Huggins has lectured in the United States and internationally, Restorative Justice practices and the role of spiritual practice in creating social change. In 2016, in recognition of the 50th Anniversary of the Black Panther Party, Ericka speaks about the importance of inclusive grassroots movements. Ericka was a professor of Sociology and African American Studies from 2011 through 2015 in the Peralta Community College District. At Merritt College, home of the Black Panther Party, she co-created and taught a course, “The Black Panther Party-Strategies for Organizing The People”.

In the summer of 1969, Phyllis J. Jackson dropped out of college and joined the Black Panther Party at the National Headquarters in Berkeley, California. Today, she is an associate professor of art history at Pomona College, specializing in the arts and cinema of Africa and the African diaspora. Dr. Jackson continues the BPP legacy of “Each One, Teach One” by offering mind-decolonizing courses, such as Black Aesthetics and the Politics of Representation, Whiteness: Race, Sex, and Representation, Black Women, Feminism(s) and Social Change, or Cinema Against War, Imperialism and Corporate Power. She co-directed the 1996 documentary Comrade Sister: Voices of Women in the Black Panther Party and is working on a book entitled AutoBiography of an Image: A Black Woman’s Journey Through the Visual Landscape.

Norma (Armour) Mtume, M.H.S, M.A. M.F.T., served as Minister of Health and later as the Minister of Finance in the Black Panther Party. She is a native Angeleno, recently retired Co-founder, and Chief Financial and Operations Officer for SHIELDS for Families, a 24-year-old social-service nonprofit serving families in South Los Angeles. Mtume co-founded two other social service agencies and three free community clinics during her career. She is currently a part-time Instructor in the College of Medicine at Charles R. Drew University of Medicine and Science in Los Angeles.

Melina Abdullah is Professor and Chair of Pan-African Studies at California State University, Los Angeles, and immediate past campus president and current Council for Affirmative Action Chair for the California Faculty Association (the faculty union). Dr. Abdullah earned her Ph.D. from the University of Southern California in Political Science and her B.A. from Howard University in African-American Studies. She was appointed to the Los Angeles County Human Relations Commission in 2014 and is a recognized expert on race relations. She is an organizer at the Los Angeles branch of the Black Lives Matter movement.

Bryan Shih is a photojournalist and former contributor to the Financial Times and National Public Radio in Japan. His work on the Panthers led to his selection for the New York Times inaugural portfolio review in 2013 and garnered him one of the highest rankings among entries in the LensCulture 2015 Portrait Awards competition. He was a Fulbright Scholar in Japan and is a graduate of the UC Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism, where he completed an audio-visual thesis on “Islamic Converts in Prison.”

Jeanne Theoharis is a professor of political science at Brooklyn College of the City University of New York. She is the author of numerous books and articles on the civil rights and Black Power movements, the politics of race and education, social welfare, and civil rights in post-9/11 America. Her newest book is The Rebellious Life of Mrs. Rosa Parks.

Ericka Huggins is a former Black Panther Party member, political prisoner, human rights activist, poet, and teacher. She has lectured throughout the United States on the restoration of human rights, whole-child education, family reunification, restorative justice, and the role of spiritual practice in sustaining activism and promoting social change. She teaches relaxation and resiliency skills for educators and youth in elementary and secondary schools, as well as juvenile and adult prisons and jails, and is currently a professor of sociology at Laney College in Oakland, California.

Robin D. G. Kelley is the Gary B. Nash Professor of American History at UCLA. His books include the prize-winning Thelonious Monk: The Life and Times of an American Original; Hammer and Hoe: Alabama Communists During the Great Depression; Yo’ Mama’s DisFunktional!: Fighting the Culture Wars in Urban America; Three Strikes: Miners, Musicians, Salesgirls, and the Fighting Spirit of Labors Last Century, written collaboratively with Dana Frank and Howard Zinn; and Freedom Dreams: The Black Radical Imagination. His most recent book is Africa Speaks, America Answers: Modern Jazz in Revolutionary Times.