by Elena Cohen, NLG President
As the decade comes to a close, I would like to take a moment to reflect on our accomplishments, challenges, and ongoing work. In times of deepening crisis, uncertainty, and wide-scale injustice, the Guild and its members have consistently mounted resistance through its vibrant network of those who value human rights over that of property. This is reflected by our most recent resolutions, all of which passed with the overwhelming support of our members.
With this round of elections, I want to take a moment to recognize our outgoing leadership for their tireless commitment to fighting injustice. Ria Thompson-Washington, Sasha Novis, Maggie Ellinger-Locke, Danny King, Amy Willis and Cameron Green: Thank you all for stepping up and taking on leadership roles within the Guild. Your motivation and passion have helped strengthen all of us on the radical left! I’d also like to welcome our new Treasurer, Amreet Sandhu, Secretary, D. Gregor, and Student National Vice-President, Luna Martinez Gomez. I am excited to work more closely with all of you!
This year’s #Law4ThePeople Convention in Durham, NC was deeply inspiring. We were honored by the attendance of longtime NLG member and civil rights attorney Walter Riley, who grew up in Durham and who is commemorated in the Durham Civil Rights memorial right down the street from where our convention was held. Friday morning’s plenary brought organizing labor with an immigration perspective into focus, showing how worker’s rights are immigrant rights and setting the tone for an intersectional understanding of issues and solutions.
Ash-Lee Woodard Henderson, the first Black woman executive director of the Highlander Center, delivered an invigorating keynote speech, challenging convention attendees to imagine and articulate the world we want to see after the movements our radical legal work support win. After we dismantle our existing oppressive structures, what do we build? Ash-Lee encouraged us to ask ourselves, “What time is it on the clock of the National Lawyers Guild?”
Our panels and workshops attempted to answer that question, with speakers on issues including reparations, protecting the right to vote, prison strikes, organizing in the South, how lawyers can support abortion access, exposing U.S. exceptionalism and intervention around the world, decriminalizing sex work, community based environmental justice, asylum and legal support at the Mexico/US Border, anti-immigrant legislation, indigenous struggles to end occupation, and so many more pressing areas.
We were also delighted by a performance by the Fruit of Labor Singing Ensemble. Their songs and music, born out of the struggle of organizing African American workers in the Black Belt region of North Carolina and the South, energized convention attendees into an action-oriented convention.
Our amazing speakers, performers, and members in attendance ensured that the convention was focused on action- moving towards the other world we NLG members know is possible. That world would not be possible without your continued support. Your work keeps the Guild alive and functioning as an invaluable organization and political force for generations of radical lawyers, legal workers, law students and jailhouse lawyers. Now more than ever, the Guild needs your help. It needs your commitment, passion, energy, and perhaps most importantly, it needs funding. With support from all of us, the Guild will continue to flourish and stand as a vanguard in these troubling times.
In Solidarity,
Elena L. Cohen
NLG President
Featured image: Fruit of Labor Singing Ensemble performing at the second plenary at the 2019 #Law4thePeople Convention.