This February, we proudly celebrate Black History Month. The fight to advance racial justice for Black and Brown people is not just central to NCLEJ’s mission, but remains at the very core of our identity as an organization. NCLEJ was founded in 1965 following the groundbreaking successes of civil rights lawyers. Over the decades, we’ve advanced racial justice through impact litigation, policy advocacy, and support for grassroots organizing.

In 2021, we launched the Racial Justice Fund to provide dedicated financial support for our racial justice work. Our advocacy goes far beyond litigation – we strive to make an impact in the lives of marginalized communities by supporting the critical work of grassroots movements organizing to build political power for Black and Brown people.

This work remains more critical than ever. Institutional barriers to opportunity, including employment discrimination, predatory lending, restrictive voting laws, and discriminatory policing, prevent Black and Brown people from getting ahead. Our vision is one of a country which meets the fundamental needs of all its citizens. Economic justice is racial justice, and it cannot be achieved until racist institutions are eliminated from the root. This begins by expanding access to benefits like Medicaid and SNAP, ending the vicious cycle of poverty, and designing economic reforms that empower low-wage workers.

As we celebrate Black History Month, we’d like to honor trailblazing icons of economic and racial justice like Dorothy Height, A. Philip Randolph, George Wiley, and Fannie Lou Hamer. We proudly follow in their footsteps as we fight to dismantle institutional racism, bend our universe ever closer towards justice, and make real the promise of American democracy for all of its people.

Thank you,