Luke A. Powery is assistant professor of homiletics at Princeton Theological Seminary and the author of Spirit Speech: Lament and Celebration in Preaching (2009).

Juan M. Floyd-Thomas is associate professor of African-American religious history at Vanderbilt University’s Divinity School and a member of the cultural resources team for the African American Lectionary. He is also an expert on religion and protest music and black religious experience in America.

The African American Lectionary provides cultural and worship resources, as well as lectionary commentary, for use by congregations year-round, including on Watch Night.

Leonard Saxe directs the Steinhardt Social Research Institute and the Cohen Center for Modern Jewish Studies at Brandeis University in Waltham, Massachusetts. He has conducted studies on many aspects of Jewish life, including intermarriage, the impact of Birthright Israel and antisemitism on college campuses.

Shakeel Syed is the executive director of the Islamic Shura Council of Southern California. In 2006, the council organized a meeting between hajj tour directors and imams leading the pilgrimage and U.S. Customs and TSA officials at Los Angeles International Airport. The council repeated the meeting in 2007 and 2012 as a town hall event open to […]

See the Supreme Court of the United States blog’s comprehensive coverage of the Arizona v. United States case.

Cheryl Kirk-Duggan is a professor of theology and women’s studies at the Shaw University Divinity School in Raleigh, N.C. She can discuss the current celebration of Kwanzaa in black communities and congregations in the South.

Akinyele Umoja is a professor of African-American studies at Georgia State University in Atlanta. He attributes the popularity of Kwanzaa to its nonreligious nature.

Ama Mazama is a professor in the African-American studies department at Temple University in Philadelphia. She wrote a book about Kwanzaa, Kwanzaa ou la Célébration du Génie Africain, that was published in France in 2006.