Reggie Jackson chairs the board of the Dr. James Cameron Legacy Foundation, the parent organization of America’s Black Holocaust Museum (ABHM). He is also the museum’s Head Griot (lead docent). Reggie first volunteered with ABHM in 2002. He led hundreds of tours during the last six years that the brick-and-mortar museum was open. He joined Board in 2005 and helped developed ABHM’s Virtual Museum.

As an independent public historian, Reggie has been a much sought-after speaker on Black Holocaust topics locally and regionally for over a decade. He presents little-known stories in African-American history at schools, libraries, churches, and businesses. He also conducts diversity and race relations training. In 2015 the YWCA of Southeastern Wisconsin presented Reggie with their Eliminating Racism Award; in January 2016, the First Unitarian Society will honor him with their Courageous Love Award.

Reggie taught Contemporary Social Problems and Introduction to Sociology at Concordia University. He currently works as a special education teacher in a middle school in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.

Dr. Fran Kaplan serves as coordinator of America’s Black Holocaust Museum’s online presence. She has been an educator, social worker, writer, and racial justice activist for nearly five decades. Fran has created and run nonprofit and for profit organizations that address issues from women’s health and farmworker rights to nurturing parenting, early childhood education, and peace-building.

Fran is also a published writer and the producer of award-winning short and feature films. Her co-authored screenplay, Fruit of the Tree, about the life of James Cameron has won awards in national and regional competitions. The international trainer-consultant for a global parenting education program, Fran authored and co-produced its Spanish-language videos, books, and games. With Dr. Robert Smith, Dr. Kaplan curated and edited Lynching: An American Folkway, a digital transmedia anthology distributed by Biblioboard, Inc. to libraries across the country.

Fran has been recognized by various organizations in Milwaukee and Wisconsin for promoting racial justice and providing leadership in children’s and human rights.

Dr. James W. Loewen’s gripping retelling of American history as it should be taught, Lies My Teacher Told Me, has sold more than 1.3 million copies and inspires K-16 teachers to help students challenge, rather than memorize, their textbooks.

Jim taught at the University of Vermont and Tougaloo College in Mississippi. He now lives in Washington, D.C., continuing his research on how Americans remember their past. Lies Across America: What Our Historic Sites Get Wrong came out in 1999. Sundown Towns was named Distinguished Book of 2005. In Teaching What Really Happened (2009), he gives teachers solutions to the problems described in his earlier works.

Loewen has asked thousands of Americans what caused the Civil War. Concerned by their replies, in 2010 he published The Confederate and Neo-Confederate Reader, setting the record straight in the Confederates’ own words.

Dr. Loewen’s honors include the American Sociological Association’s Spivack and Cox-Johnson-Frazier Awards for scholarship in service to social justice; the American Book Award; the Oliver Cromwell Cox Award for Distinguished Anti-Racist Scholarship; and, the National Council for the Social Studies “Spirit of America” Award. He is a Distinguished Lecturer for the Organization of American Historians, Visiting Professor of Sociology at Catholic University in Washington, DC, and Visiting Professor of African-American Studies at the University of Illinois in Urbana/Champaign.

Dr. Robert Samuel Smith is Associate Vice Chancellor for Global Inclusion & Engagement, the Director of the Cultures & Communities Program, and Associate Professor of History at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. He teaches courses on African American History, Multicultural America, African Americans and the Law, and U.S. Legal History. The Resident Historian for America’s Black Holocaust Museum, Dr. Smith has served on the Board of the Dr. James Cameron Legacy Foundation since its beginning.

Dr. Smith’s research considers the intersection of race and law. In his book Race, Labor and Civil Rights: Griggs v. Duke Power and the Struggle for Equal Employment Opportunity, Rob chronicled the efforts of grassroots civil rights activists who used Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 to garner better jobs and long overdue promotions. Currently, he is exploring the relationships forged between civil/human rights attorneys in the United States and South Africa during the latter stages of apartheid and into the new millennium.

Rob is also a writer and speaker on contemporary race relations to both academic and general audiences. He currently contributes a regular monthly column on these issues to Milwaukee Magazine.