Back Row (left to right): Princelee Clesca ‘20, Niraje Medley-Bacon ‘22, David Kitchin ‘22, Rambert Tyree ‘22, Michael Howell ‘21.
Middle Row: Jordan LaPointe ‘22, Melissa Privette ‘22, Tiffany Mickel ‘22, Catherine Guerrier ‘21, Michele St. Julien ‘20, Lise Guerrier ‘20.
Front Row: Nicole Banton ‘21, Courtney Davis ‘20, Natasha Halloran ‘21, Lillian Childress ‘21, Rachel Barnes J.D.-M.B.A. ‘21, Morgan Palmiter ‘22.
Photo Courtesy Lillian Childress ‘21.
Eli Jones ‘21
Guest Writer
As Black History Month comes to a close this year, I think now provides a good opportunity to reflect. As we communally and nationally take the month of February to think about the contributions of Black people to the American story, I think we have the tendency to simply re-hash the same moments in our heads. We may talk about the great inventors, artists, and public voices for justice that have shared the same strong Black heritage, and then go back to business as usual. But when I really stop to ponder the significance of this month and what it represents, I cannot help but feel dwarfed by an immense legacy.
Last year marked exactly four centuries since the first Black people were brought to Virginia, which represented to many people the beginning of slavery in the United States. My own ancestors were among the many brought from Africa to this country, treated as property by a cruel system perpetrated in a country that was founded on the idea that all men are created equal. The irony that the author of those iconic and central words owned over 600 human beings in his lifetime, six among them being his own children, is not lost on me.
But in those fields, as the hard labor of picking cotton or tobacco in the Southern sun wore down the bodies of Black people, it never broke their spirits. These men and women had dreams of not only their freedom, but of raising the entire country to begin living out the magnificent ideals it had declared to be foundational. This is the dream that drove Harriet Tubman back into the dangers of slave territory to free her people, and the dream that inspired Frederick Douglass to illegally teach himself how to read before running away and becoming one of the most prolific minds America has ever known. This is the dream that allowed Mamie Till to show the pain of her son’s murder and the inhumanity of racism to the entire country. And it was this dream that marched with the brave souls across the South during the Civil Rights Movement.
As someone now privileged enough to attend law school, I can’t help but feel humbled by the thought of the history behind me. My ability to attend an institution like the University of Virginia to study the law is nothing less than the culmination of generations of work and dedication by many incredibly dedicated and brave souls purposed with making the world more just. To be an embodiment of the progress that my ancestors dreamed about is a blessing that words will never adequately describe, and it is an honor of the highest order for me anytime I walk into a classroom here.
At our Law School, evidence of the great strides we have made can be seen in the fact that year 2020 marks the fiftieth anniversary of the founding of UVA BLSA. This year signifies half a century of BLSA’s engagement with and enrichment of not only our own Law School community, but of the legal profession. BLSA at UVA represents a proud tradition of legal luminaries, including private and public service practitioners, and groundbreaking jurists who have served on the state and federal bench. Anytime I have the pleasure of interacting with a member of the BLSA community here, I beam with pride for having the opportunity to be counted as part of this legacy among my incredibly gifted and driven classmates. The fact that there has been an organization that has consistently built and encouraged Black attorneys for fifty years at the law school Thomas Jefferson founded is nothing short of incredible.
BLSA is not just maintaining its presence here at UVA, it is also thriving. Just this year, I have seen our leadership host a phenomenal diversity reception (with an equally great one coming next month), take a service trip to Cape Town, South Africa to do public service work, and provide mentorship opportunities for Black 1Ls and Black undergraduates on Main Grounds interested in law. Even beyond our current board, our former president Rachel Barnes ’21was elevated to National BLSA Chair in November, and in January, Erin Seagears ’20 was chosen as the recipient of the Gregory Swanson Award. Furthermore, two of our newest members, Melissa Privette ’22 and Jordan LaPointe ’22, won the Thurgood Marshall Moot Court Competition Best Respondent Brief Award at this year’s Regional Mid-Atlantic BLSA Convention. These significant and wonderful individual achievements culminated for us as a community when our large membership was chosen as Chapter of the Year for the Mid-Atlantic region. Having the opportunity to be a part of this achievement has undoubtedly been one of the greatest highlights of my law school career. And we at BLSA know that our ability to do so much at a school that we were unable to attend less than a century ago is not only indicative of the changes that come with time and hard work, but it is also indicative of the importance of diversity to a law school community.
As a result, there is always progress to be made. While it is true that massive strides toward justice have occurred, there is still much work that needs to be done. In our own profession, there is to this day a glaring lack of diversity, especially in positions of power and influence. Indeed, many Black attorneys are constantly questioned about their qualifications, intelligence, and capability, as pernicious stigmas have persisted over time about Black people.[1] Outside of our profession, we see the legacy of racism and Jim Crow manifest in our laws, culture, and politics. As we bring Black History Month to a close, I hope we are all collectively able to reflect on the dark and ugly past of racism, celebrate the strides we have made and the thousands of brave Black people that made them, and also prepare to do the hard work of bending the moral arc of the universe toward justice. Happy Black History Month.
[1] https://www.law.com/americanlawyer/2019/03/14/is-being-black-a-problem-at-law-firms/?slreturn=20200123172403
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ejj9yj@virginia.edu