James Deacon was born at home in White, South Dakota. For the first few years of his life, the family moved around a lot to accommodate his father's job as school superintendent. Their summers were spent in a cabin on a lake, where Jim helped his grandparents in their store, seining minnows, clerking, and storing ice. From his eighth grade year through high school graduation, the family lived in Aberdeen, South Dakota.

Roberta Sabbath was born on December 23, 1943 in Richmond, Virginia. She received her bachelor's degree in French Studies from the University of Maryland, College Park in 1965 and married Dennis Sabbath in 1967. The couple spent two years in Chicago, Illinois before moving to Kodiak, Alaska in 1969 where she started an adult basic education program and a youth program. After about two years in Alaska, Sabbath and her husband moved to Las Vegas, Nevada.

Dr. Cheryl Radeloff was born in Dayton, Ohio, and grew up in Beavercreek, Ohio in the 1960s. Radeloff received her master's degree in sociology from the University of Toledo in 1996, and heard about a research position at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas (UNLV). She contacted Dr. Maralee Mayberry and Dr. Peg Rees of the UNLV sociology department and was hired as a graduate assistant through Promise (Projects for Interdisciplinary and Multi-cultural Study in Education).

Lovell Gaines was born in Louisiana and went to Louisiana State University. He moved to Reno, Nevada after serving in the Vietnam war. Gaines taught for one year and then worked for the Nevada Department of Corrections for thirty-plus years. He was extensively involved in the Reno chapter of the National Association for the Adancedment of Colored People (NAACP). Then when he moved to Las Vegas, Nevada in 1975, he ran for and became the local NAACP chapter president. He served as president from 1980 to 1982.