Rea Bennett was born and grew up in Alabama, the Carolinas, Louisiana and East Tennessee. Like a proper Southern woman of the times, she went to a liberal arts college coincidentally located 30 miles from Selma, Alabama. Close proximity to the events in Selma during the Civil Rights Movement brought the unrelenting racial violence and injustice of the South into sharp focus for her, and she moved, unconsciously at first, into a quest for personal atonement for her direct and indirect association with slavery and racism.

Her credentials for this project include working peripherally in the Civil Rights Movement, a decade working in Historically Black Colleges and Universities, a longtime interracial relationship, 45 years living in the segregated South before leaving for Arizona and California. She is a descendant of slave owners on her mother’s side.

Bobby Walker’s family arrived in the United Colonies in the mid-17th century, establishing itself in what is now Virginia. According to the 1850 and 1860 census, his maternal family owned many enslaved Africans - a history he finds reprehensible and which spurred his involvement in this project. Bobby is a senior preconstruction project manager focused on construction projects for the arts, higher education and aviation. He currently serves on the boards of an art museum and a youth development organization.

A Marine Corps veteran, he has advocated for veterans with the VA and now serves as veteran advisor to his local congressman.

Michael L. Zirulnik is focused on organizational effectiveness, negotiation and risk mitigation to improve relationships, enhance communication and elevate productivity. His 2019 TEDxTalk addresses his research on equity in industry.

Dr. Zirulnik serves on the leadership board of the Training & Development Division and is past Chair of the Peace and Conflict Communication Division of the National Communication Association in Washington, D.C., he also worked as senior fellow at the Center for Arms Control and Non-Nuclear Proliferation. Currently he serves on the faculty of two state universities. His writing appears in numerous publications including The Hill, VICE, The Howard Journal of Communications and Curator.

Samantha Strom was born and raised in the diverse southern suburbs of Chicago, Illinois. She graduated magna cum laude from Arizona State University with a bachelor’s degree in art history and a minor in religious studies.

Social justice initiatives have held an important place in her heart from a young age, even before learning the extent of her ancestry’s storied diaspora in the U.S. and abroad — from her Native American lineage in the Choctaw tribe to her Polish grandmother’s survival in both the Buchenwald and Auschwitz concentration camps.

Samantha hopes to help those wishing to make amends on behalf of their ancestors and aid in their unlearning of the systemic racism embedded in our collective history.

Drew Evans was born and educated in the United Kingdom. He spent over 14 years living in New York City, working in the nonprofit sector. During that time, he held senior positions in fundraising, communications, project management and board recruitment for a variety of social service organizations. Following 19 years of advocacy work, he made a career shift to pursue his aesthetic interests. For the past eight years he worked as an interior decorator in New York’s Hudson Valley, and recently relocated to the Southwest, where he continues to combine his advocacy and artistic pursuits.