The Lawyer Project

[Maxell]

To the attorneys on the board:

In contemplating all the mess that's happening right now, it became clearer to me that in may ways we are a nation of laws and those that understand it are taking advantage of it. Whether it is the appointment of federal judges or the blocking of important legislation. In thinking about this, I asked myself how do we build an army of lawyers prepared to impact this country in the right way.

My idea, The Lawyer Project, is to begin to prepare black kids beginning in middle school and high school to become prosecutors, defense attorneys, judges, legislators to affect change in this nation for future generations. The same way that we have infrastructure to prepare kids to play football and basketball starting these ages, we need an infrastructure to prepare kids to change this justice system.

I'm not an attorney, I'm an engineer, but do any of you know if anything like this exists? Does Howard or NCCU Law Schools have anything like this now? How about the National Bar Association? Are they effective?

I'm really frustrated and while there are immediate efforts that are necessary, I think there is also an opportunity to plant seeds for generational change while everyone's antennas are up.

Thoughts?

[DOOMS]

I know some of my classmates from Howard Law talk to kids in middle school. Personally I concentrate on my own kids and the kids in my family but I also try to give little subliminal suggestions to my single mom co-workers here and there by telling them how I deal with police.

Shut up, be respectful almost to the point of coonery, and say the officer's name in every sentence you speak to the officer so that by the third of fourth sentence you've said with "yes sir Officer Smith" included the cop knows to leave you alone. Then write down everything that happened for memory's sake and if your rights were violated, get a lawyer. Having an attitude is a sure way to get your a$$ kicked or worse. Know when and where to assert your rights.

I personally believe you have to prepare a kid to do what he's meant to do. No point in having a bunch of lawyers who are burnt out suicidal alcoholics by the time they're 35 because we told them they have to save the nation when they were in middle school. I think even more than lawyers and judges, we need healthy people. I don't think constant media portrayal of us as victims of police on Monday, each other on Tuesday, fatherless on Wednesday, and perpetrators of crime galore the rest of the week is doing anything to help our people to be healthy. We could probably use just as many psychologists and counselors as attorneys and judges. And we definitely need a much larger media presence/level of control so that all people can see us positively portrayed. Image is damn near everything.

We're supposed to be a nation of laws but all it's taken is one madman to slant those laws to an insane degree. The liberal/conservative tug of war does not contemplate our people imo.

And boy did I go way off topic. Back to the original topic, there's little things here and there but nothing major to my knowledge. I do honestly believe if we start a major movement it will be infiltrated, portrayed as a dangerous or crooked organization, and shut the hell down before it can make one set of attorneys.

[Maxell]

It's perfectly OK to go "off topic". I agree with you that mental health professionals are the silent need in the community. My thing is that our parents told us to get an education and we did. They told us to be respectful, we were. They told us to vote, they told us to be homeowners, they told us to protest, they told us to give back, they told us to grow up to be president. After all that, shat is still the same. I remember as a little boy asking my mama why were there fires in Raleigh after King's assassination. That was 50 years ago.

Several years ago, I was trying to help and encourage a then 16-year old girl that said she wanted to be a lawyer. She had no real support system around her to reach that dream. Her parents were divorced and had essentially abandoned her from an emotional support standpoint. She was on her own. Today she's a 29-year old with four kids from three different men, on government assistance, struggling to make ends meet. She fell into a family generational pattern and couldn't get out. She's now using those same raw skills to just to navigate the system and maximize assistance for her family. It didn't matter that she was a very sharp kid. It didn't matter.

Again DOOMS, thanks for your input. It's always valuable.

[DOOMS]

Last year my cousin asked me what we could do as a people to come up together. I told her nothing because every time we tried something on a large scale the leadership is killed (practically everybody worth mentioning) or the organization is infiltrated and/or marginalized (Black Panthers, Nation of Islam).

I'd forgotten about this one:

100blackmen.org/

I remember these cats took a whole homeroom of eighth graders from a crappy school in Atlanta and told them their post-high school education would be paid for so long as they didn't make babies or do jail time.

The whole homeroom went to college or training schools. EVERY ONE OF THEM. One of them came to Ayantee for a year a year after me but she left because she was kind of embarrassed once a few of us from Metro Atlanta figured out she was from the program, even though we were all friendly with her.

It's amazing how clean you can keep your nose if there's a light at the end of a tunnel for you. I'm also amazed that the powers in America that attempt to derail us as a people haven't taken out the 100 Black Men yet. Perhaps because it hasn't been expanded enough to truly make a nationwide difference.

[Maxell]

One of the reasons why this is important. Now all four prosecutors for Arbery, Floyd, Taylor and Brooks cases are black. Two Attorney Generals and two County DAs.

Joyette Holmes - Cobb County DA
Paul Howard - Fulton County DA
Keith Ellison - Minnesota Attorney General
Daniel Cameron - Kentucky Attorney General