Otis Moss III is pastor of Trinity United Church of Christ in Chicago. He espouses Black theology and advocates efforts to reach Black youth in the city. A poet, he wrote Redemption in a Red Light District: Messages of Hope, Healing, and Empowerment.

The Rev. Suzan Johnson Cook is a distinguished fellow at the Freedom Forum Institute’s Religious Freedom Center. She served as U.S. ambassador-at-large for international religious freedom from 2011 to 2013. Cook is an ordained Baptist pastor.

The Most Rev. Wilton Gregory is Roman Catholic archbishop of Atlanta. He served as president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops from 2001 to 2004. During his term the bishops developed new policies on clergy sexual abuse. He also has written about the death penalty, physician-assisted suicide and African-American liturgy.

Louis Farrakhan leads the Nation of Islam, based in Chicago. In September 2006 he handed over daily leadership of the Nation of Islam to its executive committee. Under his leadership, the Nation of Islam, founded in 1930 to address the spiritual, economic and social needs of African-Americans and criticized as separatist and anti-Christian, has become more mainstream. […]

Vashti (pronounced “Vasht-eye”) M. McKenzie is bishop of the 13th Episcopal District of the African Methodist Episcopal Church, the first woman bishop in the denomination. Formerly a journalist and radio broadcaster, she wrote Not Without a Struggle: Leadership Development for African American Women in Ministry (Pilgrim Press, 1996) and Strength in the Struggle: Leadership Development for Women (Pilgrim Press, 2002).

The Rev. Al Sharpton was a child preacher and was ordained as a minister at age 10. He has been organizing for social justice causes since he was a teenager and has run for U.S. Senate, for mayor of New York and for president of the U.S. He is host of The Al Sharpton Show, a radio talk show. […]

Jacquelyn Grant is Callaway Professor of Systematic Theology at the Interdenominational Theological Center in Atlanta, where she founded and directs the Center for Black Women in Church and Society. She wrote White Women’s Christ and Black Women’s Jesus: Feminist Christology and Womanist Response (American Academy of Religion, 1988). She is also assistant minister at Victory African Methodist Episcopal Church […]

Cornel West is the Princeton University Class of 1943 University Professor of Religion. His interests include philosophy of religion and cultural criticism. Among his many books are Race Matters and Democracy Matters. Among courses he teaches is “The Religious Dimensions of Du Bois, Baldwin and Morrison.”

Robert M. Franklin was tenth president of Morehouse College in Atlanta. He was ordained in the Church of God in Christ and worships in several different traditions. He has previously been president of the Interdenominational Theological Center, directed black church studies at Candler School of Theology and has been the Ford Foundation’s program officer, directing grants […]