https://www.npr.org/2026/07/28/nx-s1-5910539/betye-saar-dead

The artist Betye Saar has died. Saar made three-dimensional art with found objects, tackling stereotypes about Black identity and women. Her longtime gallery, Roberts Projects in Los Angeles, said she died in her sleep in Los Angeles on Sunday — just days shy of her 100th birthday.

https://thecentergalleries.org/dr-lisa-brock

Dr. Brock was born and raised in Glendale, Ohio and holds a BA in history from Howard University and a doctorate in history from Northwestern University. She has spent most of her life involved in social justice activism and higher education. She served as chair of the Humanities, History, and Social Sciences department at Columbia College Chicago and as the founding Academic Director of the Arcus Center for Social Justice Leadership at Kalamazoo College, Michigan. She currently works as a JEDI (Justice, Equity, Diversity & Inclusion) consultant, and continues her activism in several causes.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marlon_James_(novelist)

Marlon James (born 24 November 1970^[1]) is a Jamaican writer. He is the author of five novels: John Crow’s Devil (2005), The Book of Night Women (2009), A Brief History of Seven Killings (2014), which won him the 2015 Man Booker Prize, Black Leopard, Red Wolf (2019), and Moon Witch, Spider King (2022). He also wrote the limited television series Get Millie Black.

Now living in Minneapolis, Minnesota, United States, James teaches literature at Macalester College in Saint Paul, Minnesota.^[2][3] He is also a faculty lecturer at St. Francis College‘s Low Residency MFA in Creative Writing.^[4]

Brittany Harris (she/her) is a Brooklyn-based multi-instrumentalist and composer. Current Role at WAM: cellist in hollow roots. Selected Performance Experience Elsewhere: Brittany has performed in many major venues such as Saturday Night Live with Shawn Mendez, The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon with Liam Gallager, appearances at Carnegie Hall performing with Busta Rhymes and the Revive Band, also with The Manhattan Symphonie, The Apollo Theatre with the Soul Science Lab, and appearances at The Lincoln Center for The Notorious B.I.G. Tribute, to name a few. She also performs with her own band as a singer, songwriter, cellist, and electric bassist, performing at multiple venues around NYC. Current Sound Design Projects: Currently Brittany works as a composer and sound designer for her and her partner, Mellissa Phillips – Oribhabor, podcast “Good Night Black Child”. A podcast, creating a safe space for all children and the young at heart, but specifically focusing on original and folk bedtime stories, affirmations, and meditations, of the black and brown diaspora.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeff_Parker_(musician)

Jeff Parker (born April 4, 1967) is an American guitarist and composer based in Los Angeles.^[1][2][3]

Born in Connecticut and raised in Hampton, Virginia, Parker is best known as an experimental musician, working with jazz, electronic, rock, and improvisational groups. Parker studied at Berklee College of Music and then moved to Chicago in 1991.^[4]

Eden-Reneé Hayes

Eden-Reneé Hayes, Ph.D. (aka Dr. E) is a DEI strategist, educator, speaker, and executive coach. As the CEO of Pluralism Solutions, she leads a consulting firm committed to guiding companies from unconscious obstacles around DEI to realistic movement. She has partnered with organizations on cultural competency, retention, and inclusion efforts for nearly 15 years.

https://www.npr.org/2026/07/15/nx-s1-5892482/cdc-director-erica-schwartz-senate-confirmation-hearing

CDC director nominee Erica Schwartz faced questions in Senate hearing

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

Erica G. Schwartz is a retired rear admiral in the U.S. Public Health Service Commissioned Corps who was Deputy Surgeon General from January 2019 to April 2021. Prior to this, she served in several positions with the U.S. Coast Guard, including as their Chief Medical Officer during 2015–2019, and before that as Chief of Health Services and Chief of Preventive Medicine at the U.S. Coast Guard Headquarters, becoming its principal expert on flu pandemics.

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

Diop Tehuti Djed-Hotep Spence (born 9 August 2000) is an English professional footballer who plays as a full-back for Premier League club Tottenham Hotspur and the England national team.

Vocalist/Multi-instrumentalist Kevin Sharpe began his musical career at the age of seven singing gospel in his church choir. By age eleven he was playing drums for that same choir and eventually became one of the primary drummers for the Church of God in Christ in the region. Later in college he studied classical percussion, arranging and choral conducting. The Springfield, Massachusetts native also studied voice with Dr. Horace Clarence Boyer and improvisation with Yusef Lateef. Since graduating with degrees in Music Education and Jazz Performance he has worked across many genres with diverse artists such as Jazz musicians Archie Shepp, Charles Greenlee and John Blake, R&B and Soul artists Meli’sa Morgan and Betty Harris, Gospel artists The Soul Stirrers, Fred Hammond, The Harlem Gospel Choir among others.

Naire Poole is fresh off of her performances as Hermia in Shakespeare & Company’s mainstage production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream, and as Juliet in Romeo and Juliet in Shakespeare & Company’s Northeast Regional Tour. Select credits include: Theater: The Performer ‘hollow roots’ with WAM Theatre, ‘Margaret/the Sexton Much Ado About Nothing, Elizabeth Darcy The Wickams: Christmas at Pemberley, Hamlet Hamlet, three hang, Macy The Cake, Antigone Antigone, Dave Moss Glengarry Glenross, Francine/Lena Clybourne Park. Bella For the People’s Good. Film: Andrea (Lead) Wet Things, Hermia (Lead) A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Veterinarian (supporting) George. She has a hunger for exploring work of challenging societal structures. When she isn’t tackling work that explores the complexity of interpersonal expansion through her performances, she is directing and teaching, ablaze to adjust theatrical structures into inclusive, healing, and transcendent spaces.