Martin Kilson (1931–2019) was Frank G. Thomson Professor of Government Emeritus at Harvard University. He wrote and edited several books, including Transformation of the African American Intelligentsia, 1880–2012, which won the 2015 American Book Award. He was a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, a Guggenheim Fellow, a member of the National Council on the Humanities, and a longtime member of the editorial board of Dissent.

Cornel West is Dietrich Bonhoeffer Professor at Union Theological Seminary.

Stefano Harney and Fred Moten are two of Martin Kilson’s many students. They are authors of The Undercommons: Fugitive Planning and Black Study and All Incomplete.