The World Is Watching

Edward L. Palmer was the founder of the Afro-American Patrolman’s League and chair of Chicago Sister Cities Committee under Mayors Harold Washington and Eugene Sawyer. Also, he was the coordinator for Harold Washington’s mayoral campaign on south side Chicago. His past affiliations with organizations such as United Towns Organization, Paris, France - Executive Committee; Institute for Government and Public Affairs - Fellow; Executive director of COMPRAND; University of Illinois - Senior Fellow and George Mason School of Conflict Resolution - Fellow. He is currently a scholar activist at Morehouse College.

Alice J. Palmer, PhD was the Illinois State Senator, 13th District, Chicago and Associate Dean of Students and Director of African American Student Affairs at Northwestern University. She taught at University of Illinois - Research Associate Professor and was affliliated with Illinois State Universities Retirement System Board and National Policy Council of AARP. She was the co-author of The Mature Student’s Guide to Reading and Composition and Editor and Publisher of The Black Press Review and New Deliberations and participates in The International Organization of Journalists, SNCC Chicago History Committee and Ida’s Legacy Committee.

David B. Robinson is the Communications and Organizing Director for Manufacturing Renaissance. After completing his undergraduate studies at Morehouse College Robinson began his varied and unique professional life as a reporter for the Detroit News, then as an editor for United Press International (UPI), and later, as a senior editor and columnist for the Black Press Review, the Agenda literary magazine. In his spare time mentors young people and writes books, screenplays and children’s stories and he also is a sought after political campaign and policy strategist.

A leading poet and one of the architects of the Black Arts Movement, Haki R. Madhubuti―publisher, editor, educator and activist―has been a pivotal figure in the development of a strong Black literary tradition. He has published more than 31 books (some under his former name, Don L. Lee) and is one of the world’s best-selling authors of poetry and non-fiction. His Black Men: Obsolete, Single, Dangerous? The African American Family in Transition (1990) has sold more than 1 million copies. His publications include Liberation Narratives: New and Collected Poems 1966-2009 (2009); Honoring Genius: Gwendolyn Brooks: The Narrative of Craft, Art, Kindness and Justice (2011) and By Any Means Necessary, Malcolm X: Real, Not Reinvented (co-editor, 2012). His poetry and essays were published in more than 85 anthologies from 1997 to 2015. Two book-length critical studies on Madhubuti’s literary works are Malcolm X and the Poetics of Haki Madhubuti by Regina Jennings (2006) and Art of Work: The Art and Life of Haki R. Madhubuti by Lita Hooper (2007). Professor Madhubuti founded Third World Press in 1967. He is a founder of the Institute of Positive Education/New Concept School (1969), and a co-founder of Betty Shabazz International Charter School (1998), Barbara A. Sizemore Middle School (2005), and DuSable Leadership Academy (2005).