Wills, Cheryl: - Cheryl Wills is a veteran journalist with Spectrum News NY1. The Emmy Award winning reporter and author has written a series of books about her enslaved great-grandfather who was a Union Soldier during The Civil War. Cheryl has interviewed some of the most influential figures in the world, including the first woman president of Africa: Ellen Johnson Sirleaf of Liberia and United Nations Secretary General Ban ki-Moon and the late great writer and activist Maya Angelou. She lives in New York City. For more than a decade she was the host of the Essence Festival's All-Star Gospel Tribute, a standing room only event that has honored Cissy Houston, Kim Burrell, Yolanda Adams, Kirk Franklin, Mary Mary, Bishop T.D. Jakes, Dorinda Clark-Cole among many others.