Category: Black Excellence

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cheryl_Johnson-Odim

Cheryl Johnson-Odim is an American historian. She worked at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, Northwestern University and Loyola University Chicago. She became dean at Columbia College Chicago and in 2007 was made provost of Dominican University in River Forest, Illinois.

https://digitalcommons.colum.edu/cadc_caam_oralhistories/37

Dr. Cheryl Johnson-Odim is an activist and educator. She was raised in New York City, earned a bachelor’s degree in history from Youngstown State University, and a PhD in history from Northwestern University. She served as assistant director of the African Studies program at Northwestern, became the first woman and first African American to chair the history department at Loyola University Chicago, and was the first dean of the School of Liberal Arts and Sciences at Columbia College Chicago. She went on to serve as Provost at Dominican University in River Forest, Illinois, has since retired, and continues her activism in several causes.

Topics include the anti-apartheid movement, Chicago politics, activism since 2010, Critical Race Theory, the 1619 Project, and the 2016 presidential election.

https://www.artic.edu/authors/63/antawan-i-byrd

Antawan I. Byrd is associate curator, Photography and Media, at the Art Institute of Chicago. Since joining the museum in 2017, he has contributed to the exhibition Volta Photo: Starring Sanlé Sory and the People of Bobo-Dioulasso in the Small but Musically Mighty Country of Burkina Faso (2018) and curated and co-edited the catalogue for The People Shall Govern! Medu Art Ensemble and the Anti-Apartheid Poster (2019) with Felicia Mings. He recently curated Mimi Cherono Ng’ok: Closer to the Earth, Closer to My Own Body, the first solo presentation in the United States of the Kenyan-born photographer.

https://arthistory.northwestern.edu/people/faculty/antawan-byrd.html

Antawan I. Byrd is an assistant professor of art history and a faculty affiliate of Northwestern’s Program of African Studies. As an art historian, Byrd’s research is grounded in Pan-Africanism, a long-standing political and cultural project that imagines global solidarities among peoples of African descent while confronting the enduring legacies of slavery and colonialism. His work asks what it would mean to write art history with these sociopolitical commitments in view, tracing how such aspirations, whether unified or fractured, have shaped artistic and everyday cultural practices across Africa and the African diaspora. Within this framework, he focuses on modern and contemporary art of the long twentieth century, with particular attention to the intersections of sound, visual culture, and politics. 

https://www.chicagomahogany.com/our-historian

Chicago historian Dilla, as he is affectionately known, is an Emmy Award-winning modern historian, cultural worker, and brand ambassador. Dilla has become a Chicago influencer, activist and social media sensation.  What began by going viral on TikTok has led into perspective shifting, publicly accessible history lessons for all. Dilla’s history videos on everything Chicago have been viewed over 40 million times, and he has amassed a following of 300K followers across all social media platforms. Dilla has been featured on all manner of Chicago media and has also appeared nationally on both The Today Show and The Kelly Clarkson Show. Dilla is a proud lifelong resident of Chicago’s South Side.

He lives by the saying that everything dope about America comes from Chicago.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shermann_Thomas

Shermann “Dilla” Thomas is an American TikToker and self-taught historian who first became known for leading historic walking tours of Chicago.^[1][2][3]

He first became interested in history from his father, a former Chicago police officer who refused to use expressways as a protest against the impact their construction had on Black communities.^[4]

https://www.family-institute.org/therapists-locations/staff/anthony-chambers

Anthony Chambers, Ph.D., ABPP, is the chief academic officer and a Board Certified Couple and Family Psychologist on staff at The Family Institute at Northwestern University. Dr. Chambers is also the director of Northwestern University’s Center for Applied Psychological and Family Studies, in addition to his clinical professorship in the Department of Psychology. He is the former director of both the Couple Therapy Program and the Postdoctoral Fellowship Program at The Family Institute, and is one of the few psychologists nationwide to be board certified in treating couples (ABPP). Dr. Chambers is also the former president of the American Psychological Association’s Society for Couple and Family Psychology, which is the premiere national organization for couple and family psychologists.

https://magazine.northwestern.edu/alumni/naa-new-leader-executive-director-lindsay-vahl-dean

For Lindsay Vahl Dean, the opportunity to shape how Northwestern interacts with its global alumni community was too good to pass up. 

“I am thrilled by the chance to create spaces where alumni can deepen their experiences with the University and one another,” says Vahl Dean, who became assistant vice president of alumni engagement and executive director of the Northwestern Alumni Association (NAA) in July after a national search.

https://www.thewootenbrothers.com/brothers

For over five decades the Wooten Brothers have been recognized as some of the most innovative musicians in existence and are collectively known as one of the most talented and dynamic band of brothers the world has ever known. A self-contained unit, the band consist of (from oldest to youngest) Regi on guitar/vocals; Roy on drums/vocals; Joseph on keyboards/vocals; and Victor on bass/vocals. The Wooten Brothers continue to honor their middle brother, Rudy, whose untimely passing in 2010 left the band without their one-man horn section. Since he was a child, Rudy played two saxophones at once, duplicating lines from popular horn bands such as Earth Wind and Fire, Chicago, Tower of Power, Blood Sweat and Tears, and others.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Booker_T._Whatley

Booker T. Whatley (November 5, 1915 in Calhoun County, Alabama – September 3, 2005 in Montgomery, Alabama) was an agriculture professor at Tuskegee University, Alabama, and a pioneer of sustainable agriculture in the post-World War II era. He also aimed to “generate an agrarian black middle class”.^[1]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jackie_Venson

Jackie Venson (born 1990) is an American singer-songwriter and guitarist from Austin, Texas. She graduated from Berklee College of Music in 2011. Venson has released five studio albums, Joy (2019), Love Transcends (2021), Evolution of Joy (2023), Ghost in the Machine (2023) and The Love Anthology (2025). In addition to her studio albums, Venson has released six live albums, Live at Strange Brew (2016) Live in Texas (2020), Jackie Venson Live at Austin City Limits, Joy Alive (2021), Love Transcends: Live in Austin (2022) and Ghost Live (2024). Venson also has an electronic musical DJ alter ego that goes by the name jackie the robot and which releases projects regularly.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Annahstasia

Annahstasia Enuke,^[1] known mononymously as Annahstasia, is an American folk musician from Los Angeles.^[2]

https://www.npr.org/2026/05/26/g-s1-121475/annahstasia-tiny-desk-concert

Take a deep breath. This is what songwriter Annahstasia tenderly instructs her band to do between songs; it’s also an apt description of what listening to her music can feel like.

https://blog.mlaglobal.com/the-legal-navigator-issue-11/5-things-you-didnt-know-vallery-lomas

5 Things You Didn’t Know: Vallery Lomas, Lawyer-Turned-Baker

What started as a cooking blog turned into a career for Vallery Lomas after she won on The Great American Baking Show. From that moment, she left behind her law practice to pursue her passion for food. Here are five things you may not know about Val and how a lawyer becomes a baker: