Tom Weiner is a Northampton-based writer, educator, and anti-racism activist. He taught 3rd-6th grade at the Smith College Campus School for 40 years and middle and high school summer school for 34 years. He initiated efforts to create a Reparations Commission in Northampton, MA and has co-facilitated workshops for pre-school teachers and parents entitled, “Developing Healthy Boys.”

Dr. Amilcar Shabazz is a professor in the W.E.B. Du Bois Department of Afro-American Studies at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. He is the Treasurer and former President of the National Council for Black Studies. His writing has appeared in books, academic journals, and magazines. He has appeared as a commentator on contemporary and historical events and issues in a wide range of local, national, and international media. He has been a Fulbright Senior Specialist and has taught, lectured, and done scholarly work in more than twenty countries across Africa, Asia, the Caribbean, and Latin America. As a member of Amherst’s African Heritage Reparations Assembly, he has guided its efforts as the second municipality in the U.S. to approve a funded process of atonement and reparative justice.