CO-FOUNDER & EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR

Jennie K. Williams, Ph.D. is a historian of race and slavery in the United States and postdoctoral fellow at the University of Virginia. She is the author of Oceans of Kinfolk, a database of the coastwise traffic of enslaved people in the antebellum United States. Her first book, also called Oceans of Kinfolk, will be published by the University of North Carolina Press in

CO-FOUNDER EMERITUS

Eola Lewis Dance is an ethnohistorian of slavery, resistance, and freedom. Prior to enrolling in Howard University’s doctoral program in history (a program she anticipates completing in May of 2025), Eola enjoyed a career, spanning more than two decades, as a public historian and practitioner. Most recently, Eola served as President and CEO of James Madison’s Montpelier. She has also served as the first African American woman Superintendent of Fort Monroe National Monument, the location of African Landing in 1619.

Edward E. Baptist, Ph.D. is a Professor of History at Cornell University. He is an internationally-recognized historian of the 19th-century United States, particularly the history of the enslavement of African Americans in the South and its intersections with American capitalism.  He is the author of numerous books, including The Half Has Never Been Told: Slavery and the Making of American Capitalism (Basic Books, 2014). He is also the Co-Founder of Freedom on the Move: a database of fugitives from slavery.

Jamelle Bouie is a political analyst and columnist for The New York Times, known for his incisive commentary on U.S. politics, history, and culture. A former chief political correspondent for Slate and political analyst for CBS News, Bouie brings historical depth and sharp insight to contemporary issues. His writing regularly explores the legacies of slavery, Reconstruction, and civil rights, connecting them to current political debates and challenging readers to consider how the past shapes the present and future of American democracy.

Anne Doris is a senior operations executive in the cable, media, and telecommunications sectors, with a career spanning leadership of $100M–$3B enterprises. She served as COO at Academic Partnerships, and as Communications executive, Anne led key initiatives across the United States and in South America. Anne has also served as a Professor of Practice at Penn State, and she holds an MBA in Marketing Management from Long Island University as well as a BA in Journalism from City College of New York.

Honorée Fanonne Jeffers is a poet, essayist, and novelist. She’s the author of five critically acclaimed books of poetry as well as a novel, The Love Songs of W.E.B. Du Bois, and Misbehaving at the Crossroads. a matrilineal memoir. Jeffers is also a Professor of English at University of Oklahoma in Norman, where she has taught since 2002. 

BK Fulton is the Chairman & CEO of Soulidifly Productions, an award-winning filmmaker and producer, civil rights activist, business executive, philanthropist and attorney. BK sits on several boards including, TowneBank, the Library of Virginia, Advantage Testing Foundation, Lewis Latimer House Museum, The National Center of Women’s Innovations, and the Richard Hunt Legacy Foundation.  His professional memberships include the Producers Guild of America (PGA), the Writers Guild of America, Omega Psi Phi Fraternity, the Alpha Beta Boule, the Executive Leadership Council, and the Business Leaders Hall of Fame.

A native of Plateau, Alabama, also known as Africatown, Darron is the great-great-grandson of Clotilda slave ship survivor “Kupollee,” one of the last 110 Africans to be illegally brought to America from Africa in 1860. He is the former President of the Clotilda Descendants Association (2019-2022), is an alumnus of the University of Texas at El Paso and was the first African American sportswriter at the Mobile Press Register.

Jennie K. Williams, Ph.D. is a historian of race and slavery in the United States. She is the author of several databases, including Oceans of Kinfolk and Named in Affectionate Terms, as well as the lead author of the Louisiana Kindred database. Dr. Williams’ book, Oceans of Kinfolk: the Coastwise Traffic of Enslaved Persons in Antebellum America, will be published by the University of North Carolina Press in 2026.

Kim Forde-Mazrui is the Mortimer M. Caplin Professor of Law at the University of Virginia where he teaches Racial Justice and Law; Race and Criminal Justice.

Vanessa M. Holden is an associate professor of History and African American and Africana Studies at the University of Kentucky. She is also the director of the Central Kentucky Slavery Initiative. Dr. Holden is the author of Surviving Southampton: African American Women and Resistance in Nat Turner’s Community (University of Illinois Press). Dr. Holden serves as a faculty adviser on a number of public history and digital humanities projects including Freedom on the Move (a digital archive of runaway slave ads).

Janelle S. Peifer, Ph.D. is an associate professor of psychology at the University of Richmond. Her teaching and research focus on trauma and post-traumatic resilience and flourishing.

Joshua Rothman, Ph.D. is an American historian. He is a professor and chair for the department of history at the University of Alabama. His most recent book is The Ledger and the Chain: How Domestic Slave Traders Shaped America.

Ryan Snow serves as Counsel with the Voting Rights Project of the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law. His work focuses on litigation and advocacy defending and advancing the fundamental right to vote, and to ensure that all Americans have equal and meaningful access to our democracy, regardless of race, wealth, age, language, dis/ability, or other identity or circumstance.

Karin Wulf is the Beatrice and Julio Mario Santo Domingo Director & Librarian of the John Carter Brown Library, and Professor of History at Brown University.  A historian of gender, family, and politics in early British America, she writes for public and academic audiences about #VastEarlyAmerica, scholarly communications, and the humanities.  Lineage:  Genealogy and the Politics of Connection in Early America is forthcoming from Oxford University Press, as is Genealogy: A Very Short Introduction.

Hannah Butler is a PhD student of statistics at Colorado State University. Part of her doctoral dissertation is to use statistical modelling to reconstruct data from heavily fractured, heterogeneous records on individuals while prioritizing humane data practices. This work is anticipated to aid in making links between individuals in the Oceans of Kinfolk and Louisiana Kindred databases. Once a version of the model is finalized, she plans to design an accompanying interactive visualization for the community to explore the stories in the data.