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James Farmer was a leader in the fight to desegregate public transportation in the I 960s, Born in Texas in 1920. Farmer was an outstanding student and received degrees from Wiley College and Howard University Along with several Christian pacifists, he founded the Congress on Racial Equality (CORE) in 1942, with the purpose of directing challenges to American racism by using Gandhi’s tactics of nonviolence. In 1947 Farmer participated in CORE’s Chicago restaurant sit-ins, which helped end restaurant discrimination against blacks. An articulate and charismatic man, Farmer became the national director of CORE in 1961, organizing Freedom Rides in the Deep South, He was appointed Secretary of Health, Education, and Welfare by President Nixon. After leaving that position in 1971, Farmer worked at the Council on Minority Planning and Strategy, an African American think-tank. Farmer was awarded the Congressional Medal for Freedom in 1998 and died of complications from severe diabetes in July of 1999.

As a child growing up in California, Paul Fleischman liked riding his bike and looking for found objects more than anything else in the world. When he grew up he worked as a carpenter, bagel baker, bookstore clerk, library aide, and proofreader before becoming a writer. His work, which spans many genres, has won Newbery awards, a Golden Kite award, and the Scott O’Dell award, Fleischman does not write for recognition but because he is, he says, "a maker at heart." He constructs his stories slowly and carefully, taking pleasure in every page. Recently Fleischman has begun writing for adults as well as children, but he has no intention of limiting his work to one group of readers.

Russel Freedman is a nonfiction writer who prefers to call himself a "factual writer," because writing about factual topics sounds more interesting than not writing about fiction, Freedman has written close to forty books on various topics, including animal behavior and the behavior of admirable human beings, such as Eleanor Roosevelt, Crazy Horse, and Abraham Lincoln. He has won dozens of awards for making science and history come alive. His books often include his carefully chosen photographs about his topics.