Fred Ho is a composer, musician, scholar, and activist. He is the leader of the Afro Asian Music Ensemble and Monkey Orchestra. His many recordings include The Black Panther Suite. He is coeditor of Afro Asia: Revolutionary Political and Cultural Connections between African Americans and Asian Americans, Sounding Off! Music as Subversion/Resistance/Revolution, and Legacy to Liberation: Politics and Culture of Revolutionary Asian Pacific America. He was the first Asian American to receive the Duke Ellington Distinguished Artist Lifetime Achievement Award.

Bill V. Mullen is professor of English and director of American studies at Purdue University.