Horace Clarence Boyer
Horace Clarence Boyer is Professor of Music Theory and African American Music at the University of Massachusetts. He is known around the world for his work as a performer, conductor and scholar of African American sacred music. In addition to his help with the influences of the spirituals tradition on other music and art genres, Prof. Boyer's thorough knowledge of the historical and musicological relationships between the gospel and spirituals traditions will be of particular value to the project.

Rachel Harding
Currently Associate Director for Arts and International Programming at the Gandhi-Hamer-King Center at the Iliff School of Theology, Rachel Elizabeth Harding is a scholar of the histories and religions of the Afro-Atlantic Diaspora. Her research and writing focuses on the comparative cultural and spiritual traditions of blacks in Brazil, Cuba and the Southern United States. She has served as a consultant and researcher to the Denver Black Church Initiative and to several film projects at Blackside, Inc. Also an award-winning poet, Dr. Harding contributes a broad perspective on several aspects of African American culture, history, and religion.

Vincent Harding
Historian Vincent Harding is internationally known for his research on the Black freedom struggle in America, from slavery times to the present. He was senior academic advisor to the award-winning television series, EYES ON THE PRIZE, and is the author of several books, including THERE IS A RIVER: THE BLACK STRUGGLE FOR FREEDOM IN AMERICA. Active in the freedom movement of the 1960's Dr. Harding has long recognized the transformative and healing power of the spirituals. Dr. Harding is currently Professor of Religion and Social Transformation at the Iliff School of Theology. Dr. Harding has a special interest and expertise in the role of music as an ally of the centuries-long African American struggle for freedom.

Robert Hough (Posthumously)
Robert Hough, Associate Professor of Religion at Central Michigan University, has an encyclopedic knowledge of the spirituals tradition, its history, and its religious and musical influences, past and present. The owner of a collection of rare historic recordings of spirituals, both his teaching and his written scholarship have included in-depth attention to the spirituals as an American cultural tradition. An award-winning teacher, Prof. Hough has a keen interest in the development of SWEET CHARIOT as a resource in the classroom and community.

Charles Long
Historian Charles Long has had a distinguished academic career which has included senior faculty appointments at the University of Chicago, the University of North Carolina, Duke University, Syracuse University, and the University of California, Santa Barbara. He has established, among other things, an expertise concerning the meaning of religion in history and culture, and about the role and influences of African religions in the Atlantic slave trade, including the ways in which African American religions developed into distinct cultural forms. His broad knowledge and understanding of African American history includes a special appreciation for the role of the spirituals as a unique genre.

Eric Lott
Literary scholar Eric Lott is the author of the award-winning book LOVE AND THEFT: BLACKFACE MINSTRELSY AND THE AMERICAN WORKING CLASS. Currently an Associate Professor of English at the University of Virginia, Prof. Lott's focus has been in American and cultural studies. His wide-ranging scholarly writings have included, among many other topics, work on Mark Twain and Jim Crow, pop culture and the Middle Passage, the construction of American Whiteness, and Bebop's politics of style. Prof. Lott's thorough understanding of the politics and dynamics of race and culture in the United States adds an important scholarly perspective to the project.

Kenneth McClane
Award-winning poet Kenneth McClane is The W.E.B. DuBois Professor of Literature at Cornell University. He brings to the project a particular interest in themes based on the spirituals which appear in American literature, and a more general interest in the spirituals as a cultural force in America. He will provide a fresh and important perspective, particularly in the development of the second hour of SWEET CHARIOT, which focuses on the multiple influences of the spirituals in American culture.

Robert L. Morris
Robert L. Morris is an award-winning conductor and composer who is currently Associate Professor of Music at Macalester College in St. Paul, Minnesota. He has worked actively to increase public awareness of the spirituals. Many of his original compositions are based on melodies originating in the spirituals tradition. Morris has grown increasingly convinced of the critical importance of the spirituals in American culture and consciousness.

Rev. Otis Bakari Moss III
Rev. Otis Bakari Moss III is serving as a youth and religious advisor to the project. He holds a Bachelor of Arts degree from Morehouse College and a Master of Divinity degree from Yale University. He is currently the Senior Pastor of Tabernacle Baptist Church in Augusta, Georgia. Previously the Associate Minister for Youth at New Hope Baptist Church in Denver, he has a great deal of experience working with pre-teens and teens in community settings. Mr. Moss will provide advice and direction concerning the content, tone and focus of the series from a youth perspective. He will help ensure that the series will have a strong appeal among children, adolescents and young adults. He will also provide the perspective of an active Black church pastor.

Jack Sullivan
Jack Sullivan is Chair of the Department of American Studies at Rider University. Author of NEW WORLD SYMPHONIES: HOW AMERICAN CULTURE INFLUENCED EUROPEAN MUSIC (Yale University Press), he will be a valuable resource in calling attention to the major influence of Black spirituals on the classical music of Europe, including compositions by Dvorak, Delius, Korngold, Zemlinsky and Tippet. He is particularly interested in the spirituals as a world-wide cultural force.

Margaret Washington
Margaret Washington is Professor of History at Cornell University. She is well known for her wide-ranging scholarship on African American culture, including her groundbreaking work on the culture of the Gullah peoples of the South Carolina and Georgia sea islands. Author of the award-winning book, A PECULIAR PEOPLE: SLAVE RELIGION AND COMMUNITY CULTURE AMONG THE GULLAHS, she brings an expertise on slave religion and culture, and is particularly interested in the social and political dimensions of African American cultural expressions. Her expertise in placing the spirituals in historical and cultural context will be essential to the project.