An Evening with Doug Melville, Author of Invisible Generals: Rediscovering Family Legacy, and a Quest to Honor America's First Black Generals

Historian Doug Melville will discuss his book, Invisible Generals: Rediscovering Family Legacy, and a Quest to Honor America's First Black Generals. The conversation will be moderated by Ruth Hubbard, Director of Product Strategy at Fiserv.

Red Tails, George Lucas’s celebration of America’s first Black flying squadron, the Tuskegee Airmen, should have been a moment of victory for Doug Melville. He expected to see his great-uncle Benjamin O. Davis Jr.—the squadron’s commander—immortalized on-screen for his selfless contributions to America. But as the film rolled, Doug was shocked when he realized that Ben Jr.’s name had been omitted and replaced by the fictional Colonel A. J. Bullard. And Ben’s father, Benjamin O. Davis Sr., America’s first Black general who helped integrate the military, was left out completely.

Invisible Generals recounts the lives of a father and his son who always maintained their belief in the American dream. As the inheritor of their legacy, Melville retraces their steps, advocates for them to receive their long-overdue honors and unlocks the potential we all hold to retrieve powerful family stories lost to the past.

Registration required.

Doug Melville is one of today’s most innovative and sought-out voices in diversity, equity and inclusion. He is a celebrated author and three-time TEDx speaker. He has been featured prominently in the media, including CBS Saturday Morning, TIME, The Daily Show, The Guardian, The Breakfast Club and The Washington Post. He is a forbes.com contributor.

As a Director of Product Strategy at Fiserv, Ruth Hubbard plays a key role in driving the product vision, strategy and roadmap of the Merchant Acquiring business. She evaluates product areas for Artificial Intelligence (practical use cases) and program manages initiatives to scale frequency, volume and multi-channel support of Clover’s marketing campaigns to achieve Fiserv’s $4.5B run rate in 2026.

Before joining Fiserv in 2023, Hubbard was a Strategy & Insights Manager at Google, where she deciphered consumer behavior trends and transformed insights into tangible business outcomes for financial services, travel and pharmaceutical advertisers. Her expertise was crafting compelling narratives about harnessing the power of YouTube to drive impactful consumer engagement, increase purchase decisions, and position YouTube's efficacy in comparison to other ad-supported platforms like TikTok and Netflix.