Howard E. Covington Jr. is a freelance historian and biographer and the author or coauthor of several books, including Terry Sanford: Politics, Progress, and Outrageous Ambitions, also published by Duke University Press; The Story of Nationsbank: Changing the Face of American Banking; Henry Frye: North Carolina's First African American Chief Justice; and Favored by Fortune: George W. Watts and the Hills of Durham. An award-winning newspaper reporter and editor, Covington received the Ragan Old North State Award for nonfiction in 2004.

Darren Walker is president of the Ford Foundation, former vice president of the Rockefeller Foundation, and served as the COO of the Abyssinian Development Corporation, where he oversaw a housing revitalization program in Harlem. Walker was named one of the "100 Most Influential People in the World" by Time magazine in 2016.