 
Born into a southern Baptist family, Oprah Winfrey was raised for several years by her strict grandmother in the impoverished conditions of rural Mississippi. At the age of three, Oprah began showing signs of being extremely bright as she could read and recite from her favorite childhood books and even the Bible. Being a prodigy child allowed her to skip a few levels in grade school. After some rough years, she moved to the Tennessee for high school where she graduated with honors. During that time, she won a full academic scholarship to university. In 1976, after spending some time in Nashville’s local media circle as a news anchor, she moved to Baltimore. Then, seven years later, she moved to Chicago to host a show called AM Chicago. The show moved from last place in the rankings to first nationwide, overtaking other top talk-show hosts. In a field dominated by white male hosts, other networks were in a dire need to keep up with Oprah’s avalanche-like success. In the mid to late 90s, when other shows began doing more tacky material, she forced her show to stay on track with what it had always been successful delivering – honest stories of triumph or despair. With such a reputation, she was able to interview top celebrities about their real-life trials and tribulations on her show. Oprah allowed such idolized stars time to share and show the public that they are in fact human too. Oprah is more than just one of America’s most adored talk-show hosts. In 1985, she was a main character in a movie based on the novel The Color Purple. For her role, she was nominated for an Academy Award. More recently, in 1998-1999, she worked on the acclaimed novel-to-film adaptation of Beloved, where she also played the protagonist. In 2005, she was involved in the film-television making of Their Eyes Were Watching God. Additionally, she published two magazines, one called O and another called O at Home. In 2006, she will release her sixth book, not a biography or autobiography, but a book about weight loss. In her early thirties, Winfrey became a millionaire. Today, she is the only African- American billionaire and one of the most wealthy people in the world. Her charity work is never-ending and she has won numerous awards for her philanthropy. She has donated more money and worked for more causes than many of the richest people in the world. She has even been adorned with the Bob Hope Humanitarian Award. She continues her humanitarian stride at an unstoppable pace, while still bringing light to the issues that face our daily lives with all the empathy, care, and insightful commentaries that have made her one of the world’s most watched women. 
Soledad O’Brien is an anchor and special correspondent for CNN Worldwide. Since joining the network in 2003, O’Brien has reported breaking news from around the globe and has produced award-winning and record-breaking documentaries on the most important stories facing the world today. She is currently the anchor of CNN’s morning news show, Starting Point. O’Brien’s most recent projects include CNN Presents: Black in America, a groundbreaking initiative that focused on the state of Black America 40 years after the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. She has also explored the untold stories of the survivors’ of Jonestown which included a return to Guyana in CNN Presents: Escape from Jonestown. Her initiative Children of the Storm and documentary One Crime at a Time demonstrate O’Brien’s continued commitment to covering stories out of New Orleans. In addition, she has provided live breaking news coverage from around the world. For CNN’s Katrina coverage, O’Brien’s reports on the hurricane’s impact included an in-depth interview with former FEMA chief Michael Brown. She also covered the London terrorism attacks in July 2005, and in December 2004, she was among a handful of CNN anchors sent to Thailand to cover the disaster and aftermath of the tsunami. Earlier that fall, she anchored the live coverage of the burial of Yasser Arafat. In the fall of 2003, O’Brien was the only broadcast journalist permitted to travel with first lady Laura Bush on her trip to Moscow. O'Brien was part of the coverage teams that earned CNN a George Foster Peabody award for its Katrina coverage and an Alfred I. duPont Award for its coverage of the tsunami disaster in Southeast Asia. Her numerous other awards include a Gracie Allen Award in 2007 for her reporting from Cyprus on the Israeli-Hezbollah conflict as well as her reports from the Gulf Coast after Hurricane Katrina. She also won an Emmy for her work as a co-host on Discovery Channel’s The Know Zone. The NAACP honored her with its President’s Award in 2007 for her humanitarian efforts and journalistic excellence. O’Brien was also the recipient of the American Red Cross of Massachusetts Bay’s 2007 Clara Barton Humanitarian Award. In 2006, the National Urban League awarded her its Women of Power award. The Alpha Phi Alpha fraternity honored O’Brien in 2008 with the Alpha Award of Honor, the highest recognition for a non-member, for her work with media coverage of issues affecting the African-American community. In 2008, O’Brien was the first recipient of The Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health’s Goodermote Humanitarian Award for her efforts while reporting on the devastating effects of Hurricane Katrina and the Southeast Asia tsunami. O’Brien is a member of the National Association of Black Journalists and the National Association of Hispanic Journalists. She is a graduate of Harvard University. 
Kevin Liles became an unpaid intern for Def Jam in the Mid-Atlantic region in 1991. By 1993, he had become the Mid-Atlantic Marketing Manager and by 1998 Liles accepted the position of President of the Def Jam Music Group. During his tenure as President, Def Jam revenues doubled to $400 million. Following the merger that created the Island/Def Jam Music Group in 2002, Kevin Liles added the title of executive vice president of Island Def Jam Music Group to his resume. Thanks to his ability to provide leadership while allowing artists the freedom to create, he has been instrumental in the success of and eventual cross-over of many artists who have made the leap from “performer” to “global brand” – Jay Z, Hoobastank, Ludacris, Sum 41, Ja Rule, LL Cool J, DMX, Kanye West, Musiq Soulchild and Ashanti. In 2004 Liles joined Warner Music Group as Executive Vice President and by 2005 he was part of the executive team that took the company public. As the chief executive behind the implementation of WMG’s new 360-degree strategy for enhanced artist partnerships, Liles oversaw the expansion of the traditional record company role in the artist’s career. Throughout 2008, Liles was instrumental in assembling a coalition of like-minded entertainers who made strategic visits to swing states in the final weeks before the historic Presidential election. Liles, along with Jay-Z, Beyonce, P. Diddy, Russell Simmons & Mary J. Blige encouraged Americans to exercise their right to vote. Liles serves as board member/ advisor to Ogilvy & Mather diversity board, New Yorkers For Children, Junior Achievement of New York, The Executive Leadership Council, The SEED School of Maryland, Harbor Bank, and HealthCorps. He is the bestselling author of Make It Happen: the Hip Hop Generation’s Guide to Success and oversees both Kevin Liles for a Better Baltimore, which invests in the Baltimore community, and the Make It Happen Foundation, which empowers African-American youth to succeed in the business world. 
Beyoncé Knowles is an American Pop and R&B singer. Knowles rose to fame in the late 1990s as the lead singer of the R&B girl group Destiny's Child. Knowles is the only artist in history to have all her studio albums win the Grammy Award for Best Contemporary R&B Album. In February 2010, the RIAA listed her as the top certified artist of the decade. Born Beyoncé Giselle Knowles on September 4, 1981, in Houston, Texas, Knowles started singing at an early age. As a child, she competed in local talent shows, and won many of these events by impressing audiences with her natural singing and dancing abilities. Teaming up with her cousin, Kelly Rowland, and two classmates, Beyoncé formed an all-female singing group. The group went through some name and line-up changes before landing a record deal in 1997 with Columbia Records. Destiny's Child soon became one of the most popular R&B acts, with the release of their first, self-titled album. Gaining momentum, the group scored its first No. 1 single on the pop charts with "Bills, Bills, Bills," off their second album. The recording also featured another smash hit, "Say My Name." Beyoncé took center stage as a solo artist, releasing her first album, Dangerously in Love, in 2003. The recording became a huge success for her, both commercially and critically. It sold millions of copies and won five Grammy Awards. Destiny's Child released their last studio album, Destiny Fulfilled, in 2004, and officially broke up the following year. On her own, Beyoncé continued to enjoy great success. Her second studio album, 2006's B'Day featured such hits as "Irreplaceable" and "Beautiful Liar." On the big screen, she starred opposite Jennifer Hudson, Jaime Foxx and Eddie Murphy in Dreamgirls. The film was adapted from the hit Broadway musical of the same name. In 2008, Beyoncé married rapper and music mogul Jay-Z in a small, private ceremony in New York City. The newlywed continued to work as hard as ever, promoting her latest effort, I am ... Sasha Fierce. Beyoncé scored two big hits off the album—"Single Ladies (Put a Ring On It)" and "If I Were a Boy." She also returned to the big screen that year, starring as R&B legend Etta James in Cadillac Records. The following January, Beyoncé sang James' trademark song, "At Last," for President Barack Obama and First Lady Michelle Obama at his inaugural ball. 
Kevin Fenton, M.D., Ph.D., is the Director of the National Center for HIV/AIDS, Viral Hepatitis, STD, and TB Prevention at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention . As NCHHSTP Director, Dr. Fenton oversees all of CDC’s work related to the prevention, control and elimination of HIV/AIDS, viral hepatitis, STDs, and TB in the U.S., as well as CDC’s Global AIDS Program (an implementing partner of PEPFAR). Dr. Fenton is a public health specialist and infectious disease epidemiologist with expertise in STI (including HIV) surveillance, research and prevention, sexual health promotion and behavioral surveillance and research. Dr. Fenton has served in a number of academic and community leadership positions, and has consistently focused on addressing racial and ethnic disparities in sexual health. He most recently served as the Director of the HIV and Sexually Transmitted Infections (STI) Department in the United Kingdom's Health Protection Agency (HPA). He also served, among other posts, as the Chief of CDC's Syphilis Elimination Program, Senior Lecturer in Epidemiology and Public Health at the Royal Free and University College Medical School, and a co-founder of the European STI Surveillance Network (ESSTI). Dr. Fenton has published numerous book chapters and peer-reviewed articles in prominent journals including The Lancet, Sexually Transmitted Diseases, AIDS, the British Medical Journal, and theJournal of Infectious Diseases. He has served on a number of notable professional committees and as well as editorial boards for journals. He is a Fellow of the Faculty of Public Health of the Royal Colleges of Physicians of the United Kingdom, and a Visiting Professor at the University of London. After graduating from the University of the West Indies Medical School in Jamaica, Dr. Fenton earned his Masters in Public Health at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine and his Ph.D. in Epidemiology from University College London. 
Mayor Kasim Reed was raised in Atlanta’s Cascade community. Reed attended Howard University, where he received his undergraduate and law degrees. Mayor Reed was first elected to the Georgia General Assembly in 1998 as State Representative for District 52. He was re-elected in 2000, winning seventy-seven percent (77%) of all votes cast. In the House, he served two terms as a member of the House Judiciary Committee, Education Committee and Legislative and Congressional Reapportionment Committee. Mayor Reed was elected in as the State Senator for District 35 in August 2002, winning 66% percent of all votes cast. He served on the Senate Judiciary Committee, Special Judiciary Committee, Urban Affairs Committee, Higher Education Committee, Ethics Committee, Transportation Committee, and the State and Local Government Operations Committee. He also served as the Vice Chairman of the Senate Democratic Caucus. Mayor Reed was a partner at Holland and Knight LLP, an international law firm with offices in Atlanta. In addition to his professional pursuits, Mayor Reed has demonstrated a remarkable commitment to better his community at every stage in his life. As an undergraduate member of Howard University's Board of Trustees, he created a fundraising program entitled the "Independence Initiative. Since its inception, this initiative has contributed more than $10 million to Howard University's endowment. In June 2002, he was appointed as Howard University's youngest General Trustee. Mayor Reed served as campaign manager for Mayor Shirley Franklin's first and second campaigns. Following her election in November 2001, Mayor Franklin selected him to serve as one of two Co-Chairs for the Shirley Franklin Transition Team. Mayor Reed is a member of the Leadership Georgia Class of 2000 and is a Board Member of the Metropolitan Atlanta Arts Fund. The citizens of Atlanta elected Kasim Reed to be the City’s 59th Mayor on December 1, 2009. 
Dr. Helene Gayle graduated from Barnard College in New York City with her B.S. degree in psychology. Deciding to pursue medicine, Gayle earned her M.D. degree from the University of Pennsylvania where she served as president of the Student National Medical Association. Gayle went on to earn her master's degree in public health from John Hopkins University. She did her pediatric internship and residency at Children's Hospital National Medical Center in Washington, D.C. Gayle was selected to enter the epidemiology training program at Atlanta's Center for Disease Control (CDC) in 1984. By 2001, she had risen to director of the National Center for HIV, STD and TB Prevention of the CDC. Throughout, Gayle concentrated on the effect of AIDS on children, adolescents and families. In the early 1990s, she began to investigate the global ramifications of the disease and authored numerous reports on the real risk factors involved with AIDS. In so doing, she became one of the foremost experts on the subject, appearing on ABC's Nightline and other news and information programs. Gayle also served as a medical researcher in the AIDS Division of the U.S. Agency for International Development. Gayle warned about substance abuse and advocated female condoms and vaginal virucides. In 2001, Gayle joined the Bill and Melissa Gates Foundation as director of the HIV, TB and Reproductive Health Program and was responsible for administering its $300 million dollar budget. At the same time, she was named Assistant Surgeon General and Rear Admiral in the United States Public Health Service. In 2006, Gayle was chosen as the new president and CEO of CARE, the international poverty fighting organization. Gayle is the recipient of many honors, including: the U.S. Public Health Service achievement medal, 1989; the National Medical Association Scroll of Merit Award, 2002; Barnard College, Columbia University, Barnard Woman of Achievement, 2001; and the Women of Color, Health Science and Technology Awards, Medical Leadership in Industry Award in 2002. Gayle sits on many community boards. She lives in Atlanta, Georgia. 
In his early years, Usher sang in church choirs but sought entry into the mainstream music industry by entering talent shows. At age 12 he moved with his mother and brother to Atlanta, and two years later he secured a recording contract with LaFace Records. His first album, Usher, was released in 1994. The album was not a commercial success, and Usher spent the next few years working on a follow-up, 1997’s release My Way, which marked him as a major R&B star. In onstage performances, he showed prowess as a dancer that was as notable as his fluid singing voice. His third studio album, 8701, further cemented Usher's reputation as a smooth and bankable artist. Music from 8701 gave Usher two number one pop hits, “U Remind Me” and “U Got It Bad,” and his first two Grammy Awards. Confessions, released in 2004, sold more than one million copies during its first week of release. At the 2004 Billboard Music Awards, he collected 11 trophies and was named overall artist of the year. In 2005, Usher won three more Grammys—for best contemporary R&B album, best R&B performance by a duo or group (with Alicia Keys for “My Boo”), and best rap/sung collaboration (with Ludacris and Lil Jon for “Yeah!”). In addition to performing, Usher became a part owner of the National Basketball Association's Cleveland Cavaliers in 2005. His charity work included New Look Foundation, an organization he established to help educate youths from lower-class backgrounds about the business of entertainment management. The organization was also involved in the efforts to rebuild New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina (2005). 
Over the past century, few entertainers have achieved the legendary status of William H. Cosby Jr. His successes span five decades and virtually all media, remarkable accomplishments for a kid who emerged from humble beginnings in a Philly project. While enrolled at Temple University, Cosby worked as a bartender. His wit and joking nature prompted friends to push Cosby to try his hand at stand-up comedy. In the 1960s, his stand-up act was a coast-to-coast sensation, spawning a string of hilarious, best-selling comedy albums, which went on to win eight Gold Records, five Platinum records and five Grammy Awards. His role on TV’s I Spy made him the first African-American to co-star in a dramatic series, breaking television’s racial barrier and winning three Emmy Awards. In the 1980s, he again rocked the television world with the The Cosby Show, a gentle, whimsical and hugely successful series that single-handedly revived the family sitcom (and rescued NBC). With hit movies like Uptown Saturday Night and best-selling books like Fatherhood, Bill Cosby is quite simply a national treasure with the unique ability to touch people’s hearts. 
Don Lemon anchors CNN Newsroom during weekend prime-time and serves as a correspondent across CNN/U.S. programming. Based in the network's world headquarters in Atlanta, Lemon joined CNN in September 2006. Lemon reports and anchors on-the-scene for CNN from many breaking news stories, including the Inaugural of the 44th President in Washington, D.C., Hurricane Gustav in Louisiana (2008) and the Minneapolis bridge collapse (2007). Lemon joined CNN after serving as a co-anchor for the 5 p.m. newscast for NBC5 News in Chicago. He joined the station in August 2003 as an anchor and reporter after working in New York as a correspondent for NBC News, The Today Show and NBC Nightly News. In addition to his reporting in New York, Lemon worked as an anchor on Weekend Today and on MSNBC. While at NBC, Lemon covered the explosion of Space Shuttle Columbia, SARS in Canada and numerous other stories of national and global importance. Lemon serves as an adjunct professor at Brooklyn College, teaching and participating in curriculum designed around new media. He has won an Edward R. Murrow award for his coverage of the capture of the Washington, D.C. snipers. He won an Emmy for a special report on real estate in Chicagoland and various other awards for his reporting on the AIDS epidemic in Africa and Hurricane Katrina. In 2006, he won three more local Emmys for his reporting in Africa and a business feature about Craigslist, an online community. He earned a degree in broadcast journalism from Brooklyn College. He has also attended Louisiana State University. 
Melissa Harris-Perry is professor of political science at Tulane University, where she is founding director of the Anna Julia Cooper Project on Gender, Race, and Politics in the South. She previously served on the faculties of the University of Chicago and Princeton University. Professor Harris-Perry is a columnist for The Nation magazine, where she writes a monthly column also titled Sister Citizen. She is a contributor to MSNBC. She regularly provides expert commentary on U.S. elections, racial issues, religious questions and gender concerns for Politics Nation with Reverend Al Sharpton, The Rachel Maddow Show and The Last Word with Lawrence O'Donnell. Her academic research is inspired by a desire to investigate the challenges facing contemporary black Americans and to better understand the multiple, creative ways that African Americans respond to these challenges. Her work is published in scholarly journals and edited volumes and her interests include the study of African American political thought, black religious ideas and practice, and social and clinical psychology. She travels extensively speaking to colleges, organizations and businesses in the United States and abroad. In 2009 Professor Harris-Perry became the youngest scholar to deliver the W.E.B. Du Bois Lectures at Harvard University. Also in 2009 she delivered the prestigious Ware Lecture, becoming the youngest woman to ever do so. Professor Harris-Perry received her B.A. in English from Wake Forest University, her Ph.D. in political science from Duke University and an honorary doctorate from Meadville Lombard Theological School. And she studied theology at Union Theological Seminary in New York. 
Van Jones is president and co-founder of Rebuild the Dream, a pioneering initiative to restore good jobs and economic opportunity. Van has a 15-year track record as a successful, innovative and award-winning social entrepreneur. He is the co-founder of three, thriving nonprofit organizations: the Ella Baker Center for Human Rights, Color of Change, and Green For All. He is the author of a New York Times best seller, The Green Collar Economy, the definitive book on green jobs. The World Economic Forum named Van a Young Global Leader in 2005. In 2008, Fast Company magazine said he had one of the 12 most creative minds on Earth. TIME magazine named Van a global environmental hero in 2008; it named him one of the 100 most influential people in the world in 2009. A Yale-educated attorney, Van worked as the green jobs advisor to the Obama White House in 2009. There, he helped run the inter-agency process that oversaw $80 billion in green recovery spending. During the 2010-11 academic year, Van taught environmental policy and politics at Princeton University. Today, he serves on the boards of several prestigious organizations, including the National Resource Defense Council (NRDC) and the Robert F. Kennedy Center for Justice & Human Rights. He is a Senior Fellow at the Center for American Progress and American Progress Action Fund. A globally-recognized pioneer in human rights and the clean energy economy, Van is one of America's leading champions of smart solutions to create pathways out of poverty and rebuild America's middle class. 
Kevin Johnson is the 55th mayor of Sacramento. He is the first native Sacramentan, and the first African American to be elected to the office. His vision is for Sacramento to become “a city that works for everyone.” Johnson’s dedication to public service began long before he started his tenure as mayor. Upon retiring from the NBA after 12 seasons with the Phoenix Suns in 2000, he returned to his Oak Park neighborhood in Sacramento to serve as the CEO of St. HOPE, a non-profit community development organization he founded in 1989 to revitalize inner-city communities through public education, economic development, civic leadership and the arts. St. HOPE has dramatically improved the community of Oak Park through its holistic community development approach, and is recognized as a national leader in the “transformation high school” movement. A graduate of the University of California, Berkeley (B.A., Political Science), Johnson is a tireless advocate for Sacramento, and has met with President Obama and his administration three times this year about critical regional issues. He regularly consults with the nation’s leading mayors, including New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg; Washington, D.C. Mayor Adrian Fenty; San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom; Newark Mayor Cory Booker; and Atlanta Mayor Shirley Franklin, among others, to identify best practices. Johnson has served as a guest commentator on several networks including CNN, MSNBC, and Fox, and has been featured on The Larry King Live Show, The Oprah Winfrey Show, Dateline NBC and The Colbert Report. 
Risa Lavizzo-Mourey, M.D., M.B.A., is the fourth president and CEO of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, a position she assumed in January 2003. She originally joined the staff in April 2001 as senior vice president and director, Health Care Group. Prior to coming to the Foundation, Lavizzo-Mourey was the Sylvan Eisman Professor of Medicine and Health Care Systems at the University of Pennsylvania, as well as director of the Institute on Aging. She was the deputy administrator of the Agency for Health Care Policy and Research now known as the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality within the Department of Health and Human Services. While in government service, Lavizzo-Mourey worked on the White House Health Care Policy team, including the White House Task Force on Health Care Reform where she co-chaired the working group on Quality of Care. Lavizzo-Mourey has served on many federal advisory committees, including the Task Force on Aging Research; the National Committee for Vital and Health Statistics, where she chaired the Subcommittee on Minority Populations; and the President's Advisory Commission on Consumer Protection and Quality in the Health Care Industry. Lavizzo-Mourey earned a medical degree at Harvard Medical School, followed by a masters in business administration at the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School. After completing a residency in internal medicine at Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston, she was a Robert Wood Johnson Clinical Scholar at the University of Pennsylvania, where she received her geriatrics training. 
Charles M. Blow is The New York Times's visual Op-Ed columist. His column appears in The Times on Saturday. Mr. Blow joined The New York Times in 1994 as a graphics editor and quickly became the paper's graphics director, a position he held for nine years. In that role, he led The Times to a best of show award from the Society of News Design for the Times's information graphics coverage of 9/11, the first time the award had been given for graphics coverage. He also led the paper to its first two best in show awards from the Malofiej International Infographics Summit for work that included coverage of the Iraq war. Mr. Blow went on to become the paper's Design Director for News before leaving in 2006 to become the Art Director of National Geographic Magazine. Before coming to The Times, Mr. Blow had been a graphic artist at The Detroit News. Mr. Blow graduated magna cum laude from Grambling State University in Louisiana, where he received a B.A. in mass communications. He lives in Brooklyn with his three children. 
Tristan Walker is the Director of Business Development for Foursquare, a mobile social application that mixes social, locative and gaming elements to encourage users to explore cities in which they live or visit and reward them for doing so. He has lead partnership efforts with various media entities and large retailers, including Bravo, MTV, CNN, New York Times, NBA and Starbucks. Walker was also featured in The Hollywood Reporter's Digital Power Top 50 list for 2010. Walker holds a B.A. degree in Economics from Stony Brook University, where he graduated as valedictorian. After graduation, Walker worked as a trader at the investment bank Morgan Stanley. Walker left Morgan Stanley to obtain an MBA from the Stanford University Graduate School of Business. While at Stanford, Walker contacted over 20 venture capitalists with hopes of getting to work for the social media network Twitter. Walker’s persistence paid off as he was offered an internship position. After finishing his internship, Walker reached out to Foursquare executives hoping to secure a job with the internet startup. Again, Walker’s continued persistence was rewarded. His numerous emails led to a meeting with founder Dennis Crowley. From that meeting Walker was offered his position at Foursquare. 
Dr. Steve Perry is in an education reformer. Born into poverty, Perry believes that success in life is determined by where you end, not where you start. It’s this philosophy that inspired him, early on, to transform the lives of poor and minority children by providing them with access to a college education, and more recently, has inspired him to bring his ideas and passion to children everywhere, no matter what their socioeconomic or academic background. In 1998 Dr. Perry founded ConnCAP, the Connecticut Collegiate Awareness Program, at Capital Community College. For a period of six years, the program sent 100% of its low-income first-generation graduates to four-year colleges. Then in 2004 Capital Preparatory Magnet School was established in Hartford, Connecticut’s lowest performing district, and since its inception that school, too, has sent 100% of its graduates to four-year colleges. Capital Prep has been recognized by US News & World Report as one of America’s Best High Schools. Dr. Perry’s uncompromising, no-excuses approach to designing the ideal educational experience for children led to his being featured on CNN’s documentary “Black in America” and from there to an official role as a weekly education contributor to the network. His “Perry’s Principles” and other reportage, regularly seen on both Anderson Cooper 360 and American Morning, tackles the most contentious issues being debated in American education. Dr. Perry is a columnist for Essence magazine, and the author of the bestselling self-published book Man Up! He is also a nationally sought after speaker who has appeared on hundreds of radio and television broadcasts and at education and cultural forums around the country. 
American boxing promoter known for his flamboyant manner and outrageous hair styled to stand straight up. He first came to prominence with his promotion of the 1974 “Rumble in the Jungle” bout between Muhammad Ali and George Foreman in Kinshasa, Zaire (now the Democratic Republic of the Congo). While growing up in Cleveland, Ohio, King considered becoming a lawyer. To finance his college education, he became a numbers runner (i.e., a courier of illegal betting slips), and in a short time he was one of the leading racketeers in Cleveland. King attended Western Reserve University (now Case Western Reserve University) in Cleveland for a year but quit to concentrate on his numbers business. In1971, King entered the business of boxing. The next year he persuaded Muhammad Ali to compete in a benefit exhibition to raise money for a Cleveland hospital. Buoyed by this success, and with Ali's encouragement, King became a full-time promoter with the 1974 Ali-Foreman fight. King staged seven of Ali's title bouts, including the legendary “Thrilla in Manila”—the 1975 fight between Ali and Joe Frazier that was viewed by more than a million people worldwide and earned Ali $6 million. He also promoted the fights of such pugilists as Sugar Ray Leonard, Leon Spinks, Roberto Durán, Julio César Chávez, Mike Tyson, Evander Holyfield, and Felix Trinidad. King's financial success continued into the 1980s and '90s. In 1983 he promoted 12 world championship bouts; in 1994 he promoted 47 such bouts. King has been a mixed blessing to the sport. On one hand, he has organized some of the largest purses in the history of the sport and has creatively promoted boxing and his bouts. On the other hand, King's legal problems and controversial tactics have reinforced the public perception of boxing as a corrupt sport. Born: August 20, 1931 
Ursula Burns, former president of Xerox Corporation, was named by the board to succeed Anne Mulcahy as chief executive officer effect July 1, 2009 and assumed the role of chairman of the company on May 20, 2010. She is the first black woman to head a Fortune 500 company. According to Xerox, this is also the first time a female chief executive has replaced another female chief executive at a Fortune 500 company. Burns was ranked 27th on FORTUNE magazine's ninth annual list of the 50 Most Powerful Women in Business. Burns joined Xerox in 1980 as a mechanical engineering summer intern. She subsequently held several positions in engineering, including product development and planning. In June 1991 she became the executive assistant to Paul A. Allaire, then Xerox chairman and chief executive officer. From 1992 through 2000, Burns led several business teams, including the office color and fax business, office network copying business and the departmental business unit. In May 2000, she was named senior vice president, Corporate Strategic Services, and was named president of Xerox Business Group Operations in 2002. She was appointed an officer of the company in 1997 and named a corporate senior vice president in 2000. In April 2007, Burns was named president of Xerox, expanding her leadership to also include the company's IT organization, corporate strategy, human resources, corporate marketing and global accounts. At that time, she was also elected a member of the company's Board of Directors. Burns received a bachelor of science degree from Polytechnic Institute of New York in 1980 and a master of science degree in mechanical engineering from Columbia University in 1981. She serves on professional and community boards, including American Express, Boston Scientific Corp., CASA - Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse at Columbia University, FIRST - For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology, National Association of Manufacturers, University of Rochester, and the Rochester Business Alliance. Born:September 20, 1958 
Colson Whitehead was born in 1969, and was raised in Manhattan. After graduating from Harvard College, he started working at the Village Voice, where he wrote reviews of television, books, and music. While at the Village Voice, Whitehead began drafting his first novel, The Intuitionist. The Intuitionist concerned intrigue in the Department of Elevator Inspectors, and was a finalist for the PEN/Hemingway and a winner of the Quality Paperback Book Club's New Voices Award. Whitehead’s second novel, John Henry Days, which followed in 2001, is an investigation of the steel-driving man of American folklore. It was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award, the Los Angeles Times Fiction Award, and the Pulitzer Prize. The novel received the Young Lions Fiction Award and the Anisfield-Wolf Book Award. The Colossus of New York is a book of essays about the city. It was published in 2003 and was a New York Times Notable Book of the Year. Apex Hides the Hurt (2006) is a novel about a "nomenclature consultant" who gets an assignment to name a town, and was a recipient of the PEN/Oakland Award. Sag Harbor, published in 2009, is a novel about teenagers hanging out in Sag Harbor, Long Island during the summer of 1985. It was a finalist for the PEN/Faulkner award. Colson Whitehead's reviews, essays, and fiction have appeared in a number of publications, such as the New York Times, The New Yorker, New York Magazine, Harper's and Granta. He has received a MacArthur Fellowship, a Whiting Writers Award, and a fellowship at the Cullman Center for Scholars and Writers. Born:1969 
Kanye Omari West was born in Atlanta, Georgia and raised on Chicago's South Side by his mother. West graduated from Polaris High School and completed one year of art school at Chicago State University. After spending time rapping and working with local artists, West moved to New York in 2001 to pursue his music career full time. Respected rapper Jay-Z hired him to produce songs for his album The Blueprint, which sold more than 420,000 copies in the first week alone. West went on to produce for a handful of stars including rapper Ludacris and singer Beyonce. While serving as producer to the stars, West recorded his own demo and began shopping it around. He signed a deal with Roc-A-Fella Records, Jay-Z's label, in 2002 and began recording in the studio. After a car accident that left his jaw wired shut, West returned to the recording studio to complete his debut release The College Dropout. The album, which was released in 2004, sold 2.6 million copies and earned him a Best Rap Album Grammy. He matched that feat with 2005's Late Registration and 2007's Graduation. West also has won three Best Rap Song Grammys for his hits "Jesus Walks," "Diamonds from Sierra Leone" and "Good Life." For his hit "Gold Digger," he took home the Best Rap Solo Performance award in 2005. West also won a Grammy for Best R&B Song for "You Don't Know My Name," sung by Alicia Keys. His collaboration with Common on "Southside" earned West the Grammy for Best Rap Performance by a Duo or Group in 2007. Moving on after his tragic loss of his mother in 2007, West released his next album, 808s & Heartbreak, in 2008. The recording reached the top of the charts and featured several hits, including "Heartless" and "Amazing." That same year, West earned two Grammys for his work with other artists. His duet with Estelle, "American Boy," won for Best Rap/Sung Collaboration, and his work with Jay-Z, Lil Wayne, and T.I. netted the honor for Best Rap Performance by a Duo or Group. West has been involved in the fashion industry since 2009 when he debuted a line of shoes for Louis Vuitton. He engages in a number of charitable activities as well. Founded by his mother in 2007, he supports the Kanye West Foundation, which works to reduce the number of high school dropouts. Born: June 8, 1977 |
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