Attorney and entrepreneur building partnerships and expanding opportunities in education law, renewable energy and public finance. Darrick provides legal support to public schools helping them navigate the legal and regulatory terrain. Also serves as counsel on various state and local financings, and works with renewable energy developers to obtain valuable local tax incentives. Bio from https://www.linkedin.com/in/darrick-eugene-072ba46/

Robert Edison was born in Louisville, Kentucky. He is a graduate of Louisville Male High School. After earning an Associate Art’s degree from Southwestern Christian College in 1968 and enrolled in Oklahoma Christian College.

He has earned a B.A., degree, in Political Science from East Texas State University, a Master’s degree in Civic Affairs from the University of Dallas and a Second Master’s degree, in history from Texas A&M University-Commerce on a James Madison Memorial Fellowship. Mr. Edison worked for the Dallas Independent School District for 44 years and retired as the Director of Social Studies Instruction in 2017. While working at the Dallas ISD he served as the Curator of the African American Cultural Heritage Center, a district museum that was established as part of the 1975 desegregation order.

He spent a year working for the College of Charleston in South Carolina as Director of the Avery Research Center for African American History and Culture. Edison serves as the president of the W.M. Dulaney Branch of the Association for the Study of African American Life and History and is a former Board Member for the Dallas NAACP Branch and continues to be a member of the NAACP National Branch.

In 2019 he was named A Distinguished Visiting Professor of American Studies on Race and Ethnicity at Oklahoma Christian University in Edmond, Oklahoma and teaches Introduction to African American Studies and the Philosophy of Race, course. He also co-teaches a class on Race, Class and Gender in the Honors Program. He will be assisting the University in the establishment of an African American history minor.

One of the highlights of his career was being selected as a Fulbright Teacher Scholar and spending six weeks in Egypt studying at the American University in Cairo. He is a member of Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity and was a member of the charter line at ETSU now Texas A&M- Commerce. He was named a Distinguished Alumnus of the University in 1993.

Jamila Thomas is a 2019 Presidential Leadership Scholar appointed by the Presidential Centers of William J. Clinton, George H.W. Bush, George W. Bush and Lyndon B. Johnson. She is a native of Dallas, Texas and a graduate of Florida A&M University, located in Tallahassee, Florida. She received her undergraduate degree in Business Administration and a graduate degree, Masters of Business of Administration (MBA). She also has Master of Arts degree in Divinity from The University of Chicago Divinity School. In 2018, at the direction of Dallas Independent School District Board of Trustees, Jamila created and established the Racial Equity Office for Dallas ISD. In this capacity, she was responsible for developing culturally responsive policies and programs designed to close the achievement gap and simultaneously build culturally intelligent practices for all faculty and staff. In addition, Jamila was instrumental in guiding the Texas State Board of Education towards the historic and unanimous statewide adoption of the African American History course. Jamila now serves as the Senior Vice President for Big Brothers Big Sisters and is responsible for building the strategic plan for community and corporate engagement. Jamila is married to the love of her life of 19 years, Brandon Thomas, and they have two amazing children, Braylon and Jaidence.

Dr. W. Marvin Dulaney is Associate Professor of History Emeritus, former Interim Director of the Center for African American Studies, and the former Chair of the Department of History at the University of Texas, Arlington. He is a graduate of Central State University in Wilberforce, Ohio, where he earned his Bachelor of Arts degree in History, magna cum laude. He earned his Master of Arts and Doctor of Philosophy degrees in American and African-American history at the Ohio State University in Columbus, Ohio. He is a native of Alliance, Ohio.

In addition to teaching at UTA for eighteen years, he has taught at Central State University, Ohio State University, and St. Olaf College in Minnesota. From 1994 to 2008, he served as Executive Director of the Avery Research Center for African American History and Culture and Director of the African American Studies Program at the College of Charleston in Charleston, South Carolina.

He has published scholarly articles and reviews in the Journal of Negro History, Civil War History, Southwestern Historical Quarterly, The Houston Review, The Historian, Pacific Historical Review, Texas Journal of Ideas, History and Culture, Legacies, Encyclopedia of African-American Civil Rights, Locus, The Georgia Historical Quarterly, The New Handbook of Texas, Our Texas magazine, African Americans: Their History, the South Carolina Encyclopedia, The New Encyclopedia of Southern Culture, Lone Star Legacy: African American History in Texas, The African American Experience in Texas History: An Anthology, and the Handbook of African American Texas.       

His most recent publications are: “Julia Scott Reed: Presenting the Truth about African Americans in Dallas” in Texas Women: Their Histories, Their Lives, Stephanie Cole, Rebecca Sharpless and Elizabeth Hayes Turner, Editors (Athens: University of Georgia Press, 2015), pp. 389-409; “The Troubled History of American Policing,” The Crime Report, May 19, 2015, http://www.thecrimereport.org/news/cjn/2015-05-the-troubled-origins-of-american-policing; “Juanita Craft: Another Unsung Heroine of the Civil Rights Movement,” Legacies 29 (Fall 2017):38-45; and “Lies Across the Landscape: Removing Confederate Monuments and Memorials in the South,” Rethinking Public History, (Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 2019),  forthcoming.

He serves on the board of directors of the Texas State Historical Association and the editorial board of Legacies: A History Journal for Dallas and North Central Texas. He has won numerous awards for his community service, activism, and scholarship.