A Message From GSBA President
Geraldine Reed Brown

February 2008

As Carter G. Woodson would cogently remind us, Black history has never been just a month. But as we celebrate black history this month, the Garden State Bar Association has several programs planned. You can find them listed under Upcoming Events on our webpage. In addition, we have attempted to provide you with information about Black History month events in New Jersey as well as on various media such as PBS.

It is always appropriate to reflect on the past, to remember our roots as part of the process of understanding the present and preparing for the future. It is especially important to pause and reflect on those who made great contributions to African-American history, and thus to American history, by fighting for freedom, equality, and justice, and the right to vote.

When we think about those who have gone before us, we must remember those who are part of a great cloud of witnesses inspiring us and challenging us to make a difference that matters. We remember people such as Frederic Douglass, who was an abolitionist, reformer, and author, who fled slavery and then confronted it seeking freedom for others. We remember people such as of Sojourner Truth and Harriet Tubman. In the early twentieth century we remember civil rights advocates such as Ida B. Wells and W.E.B. Dubois, who was one of the founders of the Niagara Movement, an organization that was committed to securing citizenship rights for African Americans, whose principles were adopted by the NAACP. We remember people such as Charles Hamilton Houston, who trained a generation of black lawyers including Thurgood Marshall to lead the legal fight against Jim Crow segregation. We remember people such as Rosa Parks, a local NAACP leader in Alabama, who refusal to give up her seat on a bus sparked the Montgomery bus boycott that lasted 381 days. We remember people such as Daisy Bates and the Little Rock Nine, who had to be escorted into schools through hostile crowds. We remember people like Fanie Lou Hamer who worked to secure voting rights for blacks and helped form

The Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party, and of course we remember people such as the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and other stalwarts of the civil rights movement.

Awhile ago, a GSBA member gave a presentation entitled "Leadership Lessons & Legacies from African-American History & Culture: Of Drum Majors, Drum Lines, & Dreams". I found that presentation inspirational, enlightening, and insightful. I have included a hyperlink to it. I hope you enjoy it as much as I did.

Geraldine Reed Brown, Esq.
President
Garden State Bar Association