Leanne Betasamosake Simpson is a Michi Saagiig Nishnaabeg scholar, writer, musician and artist who is widely recognized as one of the most compelling Indigenous voices of her generation. She holds a PhD from the University of Manitoba and teaches at the Dechinta Centre for Research and Learning in Denendeh. For the past two decades, as an independent scholar using Nishnaabeg intellectual practices, Leanne has lectured extensively at universities across Canada and the United States. She is also the author of eight books, including the nonfiction A Short History of the Blockade; the novel Noopiming: The Cure for White Ladies, which was shortlisted for the Governor General's Literary Award for Fiction and the Dublin Literary Prize; and the novel This Accident of Being Lost, which was a finalist for the Rogers Writers' Trust Fiction Prize and the Trillium Book Award. Her collaboration with Robyn Maynard, Rehearsals for Living, was a national bestseller and shortlisted for the Governor General's Literary Award for Nonfiction.

Robin D. G. Kelley is Professor and Gary B. Nash Endowed Chair in U.S. History at UCLA. He is the author of Hammer and Hoe, Race Rebels, Freedom Dreams: The Black Radical Imagination, and Thelonious Monk: The Life and Times of an American Original, among other titles. His writing has been featured in the Journal of American History, American Historical Review, Black Music Research Journal, African Studies Review, New York Times, The Crisis, The Nation, and Voice Literary Supplement.