Dr. William Ferris holds a Ph.D. in Folklore from the University of Pennsylvania and currently serves as the Senior Associate Director of the Center for the Study of the American South and the Joel Williamson Eminent Professor of History at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. An Adjunct Professor in the curriculum in Folklore, Dr. Ferris teaches the U.S. South, with emphasis on folklore, literature, and documentary studies. Dr. Ferris authored and edited several books about the study of the Delta, including the Pulitzer-Prize nominee, Encyclopedia of Southern Culture, which contains entries on every aspect of Southern culture and is widely recognized as a major reference work linking popular, folk and academic cultures.

Dr. Ferris, author of over 100 publications in fields of folklore, American literature, fiction, and photography, is the former director for the National Endowment for the Humanities. He was made a "Chevalier in the Order of Arts and Letters" in 1994 by the French government, and in 1995 he was given the Charles Frankel Award by President Bill Clinton. Ferris has served as a consultant to The Color Purple, Crossroads, and Heart of Dixie, and has produced several documentary films of his own, including "Hush Hoggies Hush". Dr. Ferris has made over 225 presentations to audiences in 14 countries and was named one of the top 10 teachers in the nation by Rolling Stone magazine in 1991.

Dr. John Roberts, who served as the Deputy Chairman for the National Endowment for the Humanities in Washington, DC, 2000-2001, currently serves as a the Interim Dean of the College of Humanities at Ohio State University in Columbus, Ohio, where he holds professorships in English and African-American and African Studies. He also served as chair for the Department of African-American and African Studies at Ohio State University 1998-2000 and was the Director of the Afro-American Studies Program at the University of Pennsylvania 1988-1996.

A past President of the American Folklore from 1997-1999, Dr. John Roberts teaches African-American literature and folklore, American fiction and folklore, and folklore theory. Dr. Roberts has authored several books including From Trickster to Badman: The Black Folk Hero in Slavery and Freedom and is currently working on African American Folklore in a Discourse of Folkness.

Barbara Franco is Executive Director of the Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission, the official history agency of Pennsylvania and one of the largest and most comprehensive state history organizations in the country. The Commission is responsible for the preservation, interpretation and promotion of Pennsylvania's past.

A graduate of Bryn Mawr College and the Cooperstown Graduate Program in Museum Studies, Barbara Franco has been working in museums and historical organizations since 1966. She began her museum career as Curator of Decorative Arts at Munson-Williams-Proctor Institute in Utica, New York, and then worked as curator, coordinator of exhibits, and assistant director at the Museum of Our National Heritage in Lexington, Massachusetts from its opening in 1975. From 1990 to April 1995 she served as Assistant Director for Museums at the Minnesota Historical Society, with responsibility for the educational programs, exhibitions and museum collections in a new History Center that opened to the public in the fall of 1992. From 1995 to 2003 she served as President and CEO of The Historical Society of Washington, D.C., where she played an active role in promoting community history and heritage tourism. She headed up the project to create the City Museum of Washington, D.C., which opened in May 2003 at the renovated Carnegie Library building at Mount Vernon Square.

Ms. Franco has had extensive experience in exhibition development and has published catalogues, articles, and given presentations on a number of topics that include historical interpretation, museum practice and historical research.