Clarence B. Jones
In a distinguished and heralded career, Clarence B. Jones served as speech writer and counsel to Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.  Mr. Jones was one of the drafters of the I Have a Dream speech.  It was Jones who smuggled the pages of King’s Letter From A Birmingham Jail out of the prison (and smuggled the paper and writing utensils in). Jones is currently an Executive Consultant at Marks Paneth & Shron LLP, which is a financial services firm located in New York.

Myrlie Evers-Williams
Civil rights leader Myrlie Evers-Williams is perhaps best remembered as the widow of Medgar Evers, the Mississippi state field secretary for the NAACP, who in 1963 was gunned down in the driveway of their home in Jackson.  Myrlie was his secretary and together they worked to organize voter registration drives and civil rights demonstrations. She also kept up pressure to retry the case of Evers’ assassin, and in the early 1990s, she convinced prosecutors in Mississippi to reopen the case. In, 1994 Byron De La Beckwith was sentenced to life in prison, where he died in 2001.   Myrlie Evers-Williams became the first woman to chair the NAACP, a position she held until 1998. In 1999, she published her memoirs, Watch Me Fly: What I Learned on the Way to Becoming the Woman I Was Meant to Be, which charts her journey from being the wife of an activist to becoming a community leader in her own right.

Rev. C.T. Vivian
Rev. Vivian is a longtime civil rights activist who marched shoulder to shoulder with Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Rev. Vivian founded the Nashville Christian Leadership Conference, organizing the first sit-ins there in 1960 and the first civil rights march in 1961. Rev. Vivian was a rider on the first “Freedom Bus” into Jackson, Mississippi, and went to work along-side Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. on his Executive Staff in Birmingham, Selma, Chicago, Nashville, the March on Washington; Danville, Virginia, and St. Augustine, Florida. During the summer following the Selma Movement, Rev. Vivian conceived and directed an educational program, Vision, and put 702 Alabama students in college with scholarships. The program later became Upward Bound.
Rev. Vivian has been featured as an activist and an analyst in the civil rights documentary, Eyes on the Prize, and has been featured in a PBS special, The Healing Ministry of Dr. C.T. Vivian. Rev. Vivian is the focus if the biography, Challenge and Change by Lydia Walker, and he is author of Black Power and the American Myth.

Dr. Dorothy F. Cotton
Dr. Cotton served as the Education Director the Southern Christian Leadership Conference from 1960 to 1968 under the direct supervision of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Cotton also directed the Citizens Education Program which was designed to train and empower disenfranchised citizens while developing local leadership in the Deep South. Cotton also served as the Vice President of Field Operations for the Martin Luther King Jr. Center for Nonviolence and Social Change. During the Carter Administration, Cotton served as the Southeastern Regional Director of ACTION. From 1982 to 1991, Cotton was the Director of Student Activities at Cornell University. Cotton is now a freelance motivational speaker and trainer who is currently writing a book. Cotton was in room 307 at the Lorraine Motel the night Dr. King was assassinated.

Mayor Bill Morris
From 1964 to 1970, William N. “Bill” Morris served as Shelby County Sheriff, and was responsible for maintaining custody of James Earl Ray following the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.  Morris served as Mayor of Shelby County, Tennessee from 1978 to 1994. In September, 1994, Morris formed The Morris Group with his son, Jeff, to specialize in real estate development, commercial brokerage and business consulting.