Solomon Northup was an American abolitionist, a free-born African American from New York. A farmer and a professional violinist, Northup had been a landowner in Washington County, New York. In 1841, he was offered a traveling musician's job and went to Washington, D.C. (where slavery was legal) but he was drugged, kidnapped, and sold as a slave.

Dr. Sandra M. Grayson is a tenured full professor in the English Department at University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. Her publications include the books Visions of the Third Millennium; Symbolizing the Past; A Literary Revolution; and Sparks of Resistance, Flames of Change. 

Ber Anena is a Ugandan writer, editor, and performer. Her poetry and prose have been published in The Atlantic, Brittle Paper, New Daughters of Africa anthology, among others. Anena's debut poetry collection, A Nation in Labour, emerged joint winner of the Wole Soyinka Prize for Literature in Africa in 2018. She's a 2021 graduate of Columbia University's MFA Writing program and pursuing a Ph.D. in Creative Writing at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln.