James Pepper Henry is a member of the Kaw Nation of Oklahoma and Muscogee Creek Nation. He was recently appointed director and CEO of the Anchorage Museum at Rasmuson Center, where he will also be CEO of the Anchohrage Museums Association. For the last nine years Pepper Henry was the Associate Director for Community and Constituent Services at the Smithsonian's National Museum of the American Indian.

For the past 15 years, Pepper Henry has been active in Native American repatriation efforts for the Kaw Nation as director of the tribe's Kanza Museum, tribal Historic Preservation Officer, and as the former Repatriation Program Manager for the National Museum of the American Indian. He has worked to promote Native American art, culture, and heritage as curator at the Institute of Alaska Native Arts in Fairbanks, Alaska; Interstate Fire House Cultural Center in Portland, Oregon; and as interim curator of American Indian Art at the Portland Art Museum.