Vanderbilt University will honor the history, experience and accomplishments of Black people on the Vanderbilt campus, across the country and globally with its month long series of events for Black History Month. The celebration series will include presentations, panel discussions, trivia, yoga sessions and more, many to be held virtually. On Feb. 9 at 5 p.m. CST, the virtual program “He Black, He Boss, He Vandy!” will celebrate Black male alumni leaders and entrepreneurs from Vanderbilt. Then on Feb. 10 at noon CST catch “’Dores in Dialogue: A Conversation on the Past, Present and Future Black Experience at Vanderbilt,” which will explore decades of the Vanderbilt Black experience through the lens of alumni memories, current student life and new leadership initiatives for the future. Read a full list of all events.

In honor of Black History Month, the ABA Journal is recognizing 14 groundbreaking Black lawyers. The magazine says the attorneys selected were pioneers in their fields, using their law degrees to make history in courtrooms, legislatures and even newsrooms. Learn more about such trailblazing lawyers as Mary Ann Shadd Cary, Fred Gray, Barbara Jordan, Thurgood Marshall, Clarence Thomas and Barack Obama.

Do you know of an event or program taking place in honor of Black History Month? Email us with a link or description of the event for publication in an upcoming issue of TBA Today.  

TEDxNashville, an independently organized program from the TED Talks series, has curated a selection of talks in honor and celebration of Black History Month. See Tamar Smithers, senior director of education and exhibitions for The National Museum of African American Music, talk about breaking the barriers that exist between underprivileged children and access to museums. Watch Nashville Metro Councilwoman Zulfat Suara, an African Muslim woman who emigrated to Tennessee, discuss the unexpected champions she found during her campaign for council. Vanderbilt Professor David Ikard explains how we are all worse off when we whitewash black history. Finally, Old Crow Medicine Show's Ketch Secor discusses the often overlooked African origins of American country music, including the story of the now well-known song Wagon Wheel.

For many of Tennessee’s judges of color, historically Black colleges and universities were the places where they gained the confidence and knowledge necessary to begin their careers. A recent feature by the Administrative Office of the Courts looks at the experiences of four judges who trace their success back to their decision to attend an HBCU, whether for undergraduate studies or law school or both. Read more about how that experience impacted Court of Appeals Judge John Westley McClarty, Shelby County General Sessions Judge Loyce Lambert Ryan, Davidson County General Sessions Judge Allegra Walker and 20th Judicial District Criminal Court Judge Monte Watkins.

Before she was known as a civil rights pioneer, Ida B. Wells was a plaintiff before the Tennessee Supreme Court in Chesapeake, Ohio & Southwestern Railroad Co. v. Wells, an 1884 case over discrimination on railroads. Wells sued the railroad after being violently forced to give up her seat in the first-class ladies car and was awarded $500 after a Memphis jury returned a verdict in her favor. The case made headlines, but after the railroad appealed to the state Supreme Court, the justices unanimously reversed the decision and assessed $200 in court costs against Wells. Wells then “turned her disappointment into determination” and soon after purchased a Memphis newspaper and began a new career as a journalist. As one historian wrote, “despite the setbacks, the resistance initiated by Wells became a symbol of African-American resistance to the Jim Crow laws of the South.” Wells would go on to fearlessly investigate and expose lynching, advocate for education and women’s suffrage and battle against segregation laws. Read more on Wells’ case in Russell Fowler’s article, “Ida B. Wells at the Tennessee Supreme Court,” from the November 2015 issue of the Tennessee Bar Journal and more about her life and upbringing in “Ida B. Wells,” by David Hudson from the August 2018 issue.

Vanderbilt Law School’s director of diversity, equity and community will have a new title after anonymous donors committed to fund an endowed directorship in honor of longtime law professor Robert Belton, the Nashville Post reports. Professor Yesha Yadav has overseen the office since its creation last summer and her new title is associate dean and Robert Belton Director of Diversity, Equity and Community. Belton was the first Black professor to gain tenure at Vanderbilt Law School and was an expert in labor and employment law. He joined the faculty in 1975 after five years as an attorney with the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund and a stint in private practice. Belton retired in 2009 and died in 2012 at the age of 76.

A documentary about how the right to vote has evolved in the United States, specifically in Tennessee and the South, is now available from Nashville Public Television. The program, "The Fight to Vote: Black Disenfranchisement in Tennessee," focuses mainly on the challenges poor and Black people faced getting access to the ballot box in the decades after the Civil War, but also aims to spur discussion about voting rights today and why voter turnout remains low in some parts of the country. The program also features the story of civil rights activist and NAACP president Elbert Williams, who was murdered in Brownsville in 1940.

How can lawyers honor Black History Month with action? The ABA Journal gives examples during this time "of sharpened focus on institutional racism, the Black Lives Matter movement and a raging pandemic that has disproportionately impacted minority communities." Lauren Stiller Rikleen writes, "These are the questions we must address: Will the legal profession answer this call at this moment? As we move through this unprecedented and historic time, will all corners of the profession—including law firms and bar associations—use their unique powers to preserve our democracy, protect every person’s right to vote safely and easily, and ensure our workplaces eliminate systemic bias? Or will we let the moment pass through our grasp?"

The Tennessee Bar Association is making available the program Empowering Lawyers as Leaders for viewing during February and March. Produced jointly by the TBA and the Tennessee American Inns of Court, this program brings together influential lawyers and leaders from across the state to share their experiences and to examine the role of leadership in the legal profession. Speakers discuss the importance of leading by example to promote diversity, equity, inclusion and professionalism in everyday practice. Among those featured are former Supreme Court Justice and Nashville School of Law Dean William C. Koch Jr., former Sen. Lamar Alexander and the Hon. Bernice B. Donald.