Adam Velk is the Director of the Green McAdoo Cultural Center (GMCC), a nonprofit organization devoted to honoring and telling the history of the Clinton 12; the first students to desegregate a state-run school in Tennessee. He is currently creating projects at the GMCC that offer high school students opportunities to get first-hand experiences and mentorships in museum work, educate patrons on food inequality and culinary injustices, and focus on bringing community together.

A transplant from the Chicago, Velk received his bachelor’s degree in History from the University of Hartford and his master’s degree in Public History at the University of Illinois, Springfield. He has worked at the Adler Planetarium, the Central Illinois African American Museum, the Lincoln Home National Historic Site, the White House’s National Christmas Tree, and Padre Island National Seashore. He has presented his work, “Into the Trenches: The Effectiveness of African American Lead Violence in the Civil Rights Movement Pre-1966″ and been awarded the Donley’s Wild West Town 2011, “Cowboy of the Year.”