Inspired by the Past to Improve the Future


March 7, 2019

2018 Spring Conference

Left to right: 2L Michael Essiaw, 2L Colin Williams, Jeffrey and Martha Kohn Senior Associate Dean for Academic Affairs Roger A. Fairfax, Jr., Dean Blake D. Morant, 2L Damilola Arowolaju, and ABLA President Mike Michel, JD '15, during the 2018 conference.

Twenty-five years after the end of reconstruction, the first black legal organizations began to spring up in the South. In 1895, one of those organizations, The Colored Bar Association of the State of Mississippi, held its first annual meeting, later to be called the Greenville Movement, in Greenville, Mississippi. The keynote speaker, Josiah T. Settle, a Howard University School of Law graduate, stated “This first annual meeting marks the advent of the colored citizen into a new field of labor. It evidences the existence of a sufficient number of colored lawyers in Mississippi engaged in active practice of the law to form a state organization to promote their interests individually and collectively and in doing this, they cannot fail to promote the interests of the entire race and to contribute to the general welfare of our common country, for we are as much a part of our composite nationality as any element it contains.”

From the Greenville Movement came the 1924 convention of the Iowa Colored Bar Association, where lawyers from across the nation came together to engage in ideas and collaborate. The convention included black lawyers from several states including Wendell E. Green, C. Francis Stradford, Jessie N. Baker, William H. Haynes, George C. Adams, L. Amasa Knox, Charles H. Calloway, Gertrude E. Rush, Charles P. Howard, George H. Woodson, James B. Morris, and S. Joe Brown. One of the ideas introduced was the formation of a national bar association for black lawyers. Accordingly, in 1925 the Negro Bar Association was incorporated in Des Moines, Iowa.

Emulating the same spirit, the GW Black Law Students Association (BLSA) and the Association of Black Law Alumni (ABLA) hosted their first annual Spring Conference in the spring of 2018. The symposium featured leaders from various legal fields exploring critical issues at the intersection of race, law, and politics. The Spring Conference featured three substantive panels, during which students and conference participants discussed how financial equity can uplift communities of color; how legal advocacy and legislative improvements can positively change interactions between the criminal justice system and people of color; and how lawyers can successfully utilize their law degrees in nontraditional ways. “The inaugural conference was a great opportunity for GW alumni to collaborate and harness our collective talents and interests. It is our endeavor that the conference continues to grow and provide opportunities for our alumni to make connections that propel them forward," said ABLA President Mike Michel, JD '15.

The conference also included remarks by Dean Blake D. Morant and a luncheon keynote address by Grace E. Speights, JD '82, who was named the 2018 Attorney of the Year by American Lawyer magazine and was recently nominated to be Chairperson of the GWU Board of Trustees. The Second Annual Spring Conference will take place on Saturday, April 6, 2019, at the Washington, DC office of O'Melveny and Myers.

Register for the 2019 Spring Conference