William C. Turner Jr., associate professor of the practice of homiletics at Duke University Divinity School, is an expert in pneumatology (spirits as intermediaries between God and people) and the tradition of spirituality and preaching in the black church. He has written on the “musicality of black preaching” and black evangelism. He is also pastor […]

Karen Baker-Fletcher is a professor of systematic theology at Southern Methodist University’s Perkins School of Theology. She specializes in womanist theology and is the co-author of My Sister, My Brother: Womanist and Xodus God-Talk. Baker-Fletcher’s research interests also include ecology, and in 2007 the environmental magazine Grist named her as one of 15 top religious leaders on […]

Debra Y. Fraser-Howze is president and CEO of the National Black Leadership Commission on AIDS. Her professional career has been spent delivering social services to African-American communities.

Brenda Girton-Mitchell is director of the Department’s Center for Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships. She is also chaplain to the National Bar Association and is a deacon trustee at the Metropolitan Baptist Church in Washington, D.C. She can discuss the NCC’s work on social issues, including marriage, single-parenthood and families. Contact 202-544-2350.

Alice M. Graham is professor of pastoral care and counseling at Hood Theological Seminary in Salisbury, N.C. She is an ordained minister in the American Baptist denomination. Among her interests is the subject of the psychological and emotional issues facing inmates released from prison. She teaches a seminar for inmates in a transitional program at North […]

Ronald B. Mincy is Maurice V. Russell Professor of Social Policy and Social Work Practice at Columbia University School of Social Work in New York. His work focuses on public policy, family, race, the role of men in poverty and the relationship between marriage and poverty. He coined the term “fragile families.” Mincy says that a […]

Stephen G. Ray is the Neal F. and Ila A. Fisher Professor of Theology at Garrett-Evangelical Theological Seminary, where he directs the seminary’s Urban Theological Institute. He is also an ordained minister of the United Church of Christ

Antonio Tillis is associate professor and chair of African American studies at Dartmouth University. He can discuss cultural, economic, political and social influences on black men in the U.S., including personal relationships, sexuality, self-definition, criminal justice and media representations.

William Julius Wilson is Lewis P. and Linda L. Geyser University Professor at Harvard University. A MacArthur Prize Fellow from 1987 to 1992 and former president of the American Sociological Association, Wilson has said that he looks, in addition to government, to religious organizations to reduce social problems in neighborhoods and to rebuild inner cities. […]