Margaret Allison Bonds was an American composer, pianist, arranger, and teacher. One of the first Black composers and performers to gain recognition in the United States, she is best remembered today for her popular arrangements of African-American spirituals and frequent collaborations with Langston Hughes.

Monroe Alpheus Majors was an American physician, writer and civil rights activist in Texas and Los Angeles. He was one of the first black physicians in the American southwest and established a medical association for black physicians who were not allowed entry into the American Medical Association. He wrote a noted book of biographies of African-American women, Noted Negro Women: Their Triumphs and Activities, published in 1893, and wrote for numerous African-American newspapers, notably the Indianapolis Freeman, of which he was an associate editor in 1898 and 1899, and the Chicago Conservator, which he edited from 1908 to 1910. He was the father of composer Margaret Bonds.