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Karen Kossie-Chernyshev, PhD (Rice University), is the first African American to earn a PhD in the field of history from Rice University. She serves as Professor of History at Texas Southern University, where her research focuses on African American women’s intellectual history and religion in the African Diaspora. This publication affirms her commitment to fostering a sustained appreciation for the life and writings of Lillian Jones Horace (1880-1965), Texas’s, and perhaps the US South’s, earliest known African American woman novelist. Michon Benson, PhD (Rice University), serves as Visiting Professor of African American Literature at Texas Southern University. Her background includes public education, non-profit arts administration, and community development. Her research focuses on resistance and survival in Black youth popular cultural forms, particularly rap music and cinema. A local radio-show host and guest lecturer, Dr. Benson is currently working on her first novel.