SFCG on Race: Advisory Board

Sherry Salway Black

Sherry Salway Black is the Executive Director of the Ovarian Cancer National Alliance and an ovarian and endometrial cancer survivor. Her experience includes nonprofit management, health care administration, business and economic development and philanthropy. Prior to coming to the National Conference of American Indian, Ms. Black served for 19 years as Senior Vice President and on the board of directors for First Nations Development Institute, an international non-governmental organization working with Indigenous peoples. Previous work experience includes various positions with the Indian Health Service (DHHS, PHS) and as a researcher for a Congressional commission studying issues affecting American Indian and Alaska Native peoples. Ms. Black currently serves on the board of directors of the Council on Foundations where she is the Treasurer and chair of the Finance and Investment Committee. She has served as an advisor to the National Museum of the American Indian and is a past advisory committee member for the Harvard "Honoring Excellence in the Governance of Tribal Nations" program and the American Indian Headstart program. Ms. Black has a Master's of Business Administration degree, with a health care administration major, from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania. She is a member of the Oglala Lakota Nation and is originally from South Dakota. She and her husband, Ronald Simpson Black, live in Falmouth, Virginia.

Taylor Branch

Taylor Branch is an American author and public speaker best known for his landmark narrative history of the civil rights era, America in the King Years. The trilogy's first book, Parting the Waters: America in the King Years, 1954-63, won the Pulitzer Prize and numerous other awards in 1989. Two successive volumes also gained critical and popular success: Pillar of Fire: America in the King Years, 1963-65, and At Canaan's Edge: America in the King Years, 1965-1968. Decades later, all three books remain in demand. Aside from writing, Taylor speaks before a wide variety of audiences. He began his career as a magazine journalist for The Washington Monthly in 1970, moving later to Harper's and Esquire. He lives in Baltimore, Maryland.

Rashaad El-Saddiq

Chaplain Rashad El-Saddiq serves as Chaplain/Imam with the Federal Bureau of Prisons as well as with the Air Force Reserves. He is a 28- year veteran of the Military Service as well as a graduate of Hartford Seminary's MA in Muslim-Christian Relations & Islamic Chaplaincy Program where his thesis was entitled "Islam, Christianity, and the Black American Diaspora: Discovering Foundations and Building a Framework for Inter-Religious Cooperation and Appreciation." Chaplain El-Saddiq is endorsed by the Islamic Society of North America & American Muslim Armed Forces and the Veterans Affairs Council. He currently resides in Southern California.

David Shipler

David K. Shipler is a Pulitzer Prize-winning author and a former correspondent for The New York Times who reported from New York, Saigon, Moscow, and Jerusalem before becoming Chief Diplomatic Correspondent in Washington. He has written five books, including Arab and Jew: Wounded Spirits in a Promised Land (which won the Pulitzer for general nonfiction) and A Country of Strangers:Blacks and Whites in America, which explores patterns of interaction and stereotyping across racial lines. He has been the executive producer of two PBS documentaries, visiting scholar at the Brookings Institution, a senior associate at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, and a visiting professor at Princeton, Dartmouth, and American University in Washington, D.C. His latest book, The Rights of the People: How Our Search for Safety Invades Our Liberties was published in 2011. He writes online at The Shipler Report.

Susan Taylor

Susan Taylor is the Founder & CEO of National CARES Mentoring Movement as well as Editor-in-Chief Emeritus of Essence Magazine. She has served as fashion and beauty editor, editor-in-chief and editorial director for the magazine and authored of one of the magazine's most popular columns, In the Spirit, for 27 years. For her work at Essence, she was the first and only African American Woman to be recognized by the Magazine Publishers of America with the Henry Johnson Fisher Award—the industry's highest honor—and the first to be inducted into the American Society of Magazine Editors Hall of Fame. She is the recipient of the NAACP President's Award for visionary leadership and has honorary degrees from more than a dozen colleges and universities. Susan Taylor is the author of four books and is a much sought-after speaker, inspiring hope and encouraging us to reclaim our lives and create sustainable communities. She is an avid supporter of a host of organizations dedicated to moving the Black community forward and in addition to previously mentioned work, Susan is a cofounder of Future PAC, and co-chair with Danny Glover of Shared Interest. She serves on the boards of the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies, the National Underground Railroad Freedom Center and Girl Scouts of the USA. She has worked passionately to help restore the lives of people in New Orleans and the Gulf Coast region who were devastated by Hurricanes Katrina and Rita.

Mike Wenger

Michael R. Wenger is a Senior Fellow at the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies, the nation's pre-eminent research and public policy analysis institution focusing on issues of race. He also is an adjunct professor in the Department of Sociology, specializing in race relations, at The George Washington University, and he is a consultant on race relations.

Mr. Wenger has held many roles at the Joint Center, including serving as the founder and Director of NABRE (Network of Alliances Bridging Race and Ethnicity), which linked approximately 200 race relations/racial justice organizations across the country for the purpose of facilitating communication and interaction. Before coming to the Joint Center in October 1998, Mr. Wenger served as Deputy Director for Outreach and Program Development for President Clinton's Initiative on Race.

Prior to his work with the President's Initiative on Race, Mr. Wenger held several positions in the WV State Government. He began his career as a journalist and public school teacher in New York.

Mr. Wenger was born in New York City and educated at Queens College of the City University of New York, where he was a leader in the civil rights struggles of the early 1960s. He is married and has three grown children and four grandchildren.