L'Merchie Frazier is a visual and performance artist, educator, consultant, and mother of two sons and one daughter. She is a native of Jacksonville, Florida, but now she is based in Boston and has been active in the New England community for over twenty years; she is a board member of [FabLabs For America](http://www.fablabs4america.org/about-fablabs-for-america/board/lmerchie-frazier/ "L'Merchie Frazier FabLabs4America"). As a visual artist she is best known for her highly skilled hand crafted beaded jewelry, fiber and metal sculptures, and mixed media installations and quilt series, the "Quilted Chronicles." Currently, Frazier is Director of Education at the Museum of African American History. She was formerly Education Director of Arts Are Academic, serving several Boston cultural institutions, including the Museum of the National Center of Afro-American Artists, the Museum of Fine Arts, the Huntington Theater and the Boston Public Schools, where she promoted art literacy for students and teachers across disciplines. She has taught African American Art and Culture at the Boston Community Academy for at-risk students. Frazier teaches courses in cultural diversity; principal teacher of visual and performance art for the Museum of the National Center of Afro-American Artists and workshop instructor for the Fuller Museum of Art in Brockton, MA. Certified as an artist educator by the Kennedy Center Artists as Educators program, she is on the roster of the Massachusetts Cultural Council Directory for Events and Residences; she served on the MCC Folk Arts Review Panel and the First Night 2001 Review Panel. She has also served as director of urban art camps in Greater Boston. Her artwork has appeared in numerous publications, and she has exhibitions of her work in the Museum of African American History, Boston; the Museum of the National Center of Afro-American Artists, Boston; the New England Quilt Museum; Museu Lasar Segall, Brazil; Ain Ping Harbor, Tainan, Taiwan; the American Craft Museum, New York; the Renwick Gallery of the Smithsonian Institute, Washington, DC; and the permanent collection of the White House.

Les Payne was a Pulitzer Prize–winning investigative journalist and a former editor at Newsday. A founder of the National Association of Black Journalists, he also wrote an award-winning syndicated column. Tamara Payne served as Les Payne’s principal researcher.