Derek Howard

President and founder, DHArchitects, Inc.

One of the greatest business lessons I learned in my lifetime didn't come from a board meeting or while on the job -- but rather a medical mission trip to one of the poorest countries in the world: Haiti.

Wray Herbert

Author, 'On Second Thought: Outsmarting Your Mind's Hard-Wired Habits'

There are lots of theories about diversity and trust, but little agreement. Some believe that ethnically diverse communities foster trust, while others argue the opposite, that diversity breeds conflict.

Fatima Scipio

Author, Entrepreneur, Philanthropist

A week before my wedding, I received a call from my doctor and was told they "saw something" and I needed to get a biopsy! My biopsy was scheduled for a week after my wedding. No honeymoon, Just a trip to the doctor to find out what was going on inside of me.

Trudy Bourgeois

President / CEO, The Center for Workforce Excellence

Who could have imagined that a city with such a sordid and sad history for African Americans' civil rights could become such a beacon of light and hope for all of us today?

Michelle Bernard

President & CEO, the Bernard Center for Women, Politics & Public Policy; and MSNBC Political Analyst

Regardless of socio-economic status, I have never met a single mother who didn't want a better life for herself and her children and who didn't realize that education and knowledge are they key to leveling the playing field.

Tavis Smiley

PBS talk show host, PRI radio host, NYT bestselling author

Tomorrow night on PBS, I sit with David Dinkins, New York City's first, and to this date, only African-American mayor. We look back on his impressive political career and discuss his new memoir, A Mayor's Life: Governing New York's Gorgeous Mosaic.

Judith Browne Dianis

Co-Director, Advancement Project

Extreme disciplinary responses can actually make the problem worse, and even hurt the very students they are designed to protect. To defend themselves, victims of bullying often see no other choice than to employ survival tactics, which could include carrying a weapon.

David A. Love

Executive Director, Witness to Innocence

The stakes are so high -- literally life and death -- and yet the error rate is so high as well. Certainly a factory would be shut down if every ninth or 10th product coming off the assembly line was defective.

Rob Richie

Executive director, FairVote

This week, Civitas' election policy analyst Susan Myrick claimed that the effects of restrictive voting laws on racial minorities are overblown. Unfortunately Myrick used a misleading statistic in her blog post and ignored many others that contradict her argument.

J Mase III

Poet, educator and activist

A few years ago I was introduced to the concept of queer theology. I was inspired to share some of what I've learned from one of my favorite queer theologians, Peterson Toscano, in poem form.

Earl Ofari Hutchinson

Author and political analyst

This statistically minuscule percentage of the overall congressional body then has managed to wreak untold havoc on nearly every aspect of American life. How did that happen?

Bertha Lewis

President of The Black Institute & Former CEO and Chief Organizer of ACORN

Thanks to the mainstream media and hypocritical politicians, the phrase "immigration reform" has become so politicized, so polarizing that the term itself distracts from what is truly at stake.

Russell Simmons

Founder, GlobalGrind.com

If the Republicans, specifically the members of the Tea Party, want to play games with our economy, he shouldn't give them an inch. Tell the Tea Party that they can't hijack our government and to take a seat. Stand strong, Mr. President, we got your back.

Toni Newman

Writer, law school student and author, 'I Rise: The Transformation of Toni Newman'

Dr. Kortney Ryan Ziegler is a writer, filmmaker, producer, artist and activist fighting for social justice in the trans community. My interview with Dr. Ziegler discusses race, gender, the fight for equality and the empowerment of the transgender community.

Yolo Akili

Writer, Counselor and author, 'Dear Universe: Letters of Affirmation and Empowerment for All of Us'

Within this book's pages, I found a range of black characters with complicated intra-psychic lives, sexualities and (Thank God) relationships to the Christian church.

Christina Brown

Broadcast Journalist

The smell of Jamaican patties and jerk chicken and the sounds of the West Indies Patois were very much in evidence during the annual Brooklyn Book Festival.

Eva M. Clayton

Former Congresswoman and former Assistant Director General of the UN Food and Agriculture Organization

Americans do not want to destroy our country by continuing this Republican-led government shutdown. The Administration and its allies must work harder than ever to engage the public about the benefits of Obamacare to drive enrollment.