On February 20th, 1937, the National Lawyers Guild was born. At its founding convention, more than 600 legal professionals from across the country gathered to create the first racially integrated national bar association in the US, that declared the organization’s mission as “in the service of the people, to the end that human rights shall be regarded as more sacred than property interests.”
To help us celebrate all year long, please spread the word about the NLG on social media with #NLG80, and perhaps gift a Guild membership to a friend or make a contribution to the NLG. We also hope you’ll join us in Washington, DC, August 2-6, for our 80th anniversary #Law4thePeople Convention at the UDC David A. Clarke School of Law!
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- NLG attorneys Haywood Burns (far right) and Margaret Burnham (far left), with client Angela Davis (center).
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- The NLG and Southern Christian Leadership Conference hold the first integrated conference of civil rights lawyers ever held in the South. (Front row, far left: Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.; Front row, third and fourth from left: George Crockett and Ernie Goodman.)
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- Demonstration on the steps of the courthouse in NYC protesting the use of the grand jury. Guild members have provided legal support to grand jury resisters and those who support Puerto Rican independence.
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- 1983 NLG Convention in Chicago. Chicago Mayor Harold Washington (center) flanked by former NLG presidents Earl Dickerson (left) and Michael Ratner (right).
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- Atlanta NLG member Brian Spears marching with the United League in an anti-KKK march in Tupelo, MS, 1978.
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- Earl B. Dickerson, c. 1940, the first Black president of an integrated bar association.
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- NLG Chicago member Frank Anglin, Jr holds a copy of the first manual devoted solely to civil rights law, published by the NLG and edited by NLG SF member Ann Fagan Ginger.
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- Guild members Max who served in the Spanish Civil War.
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- Former NLG NYC President Paul O’Dwyer, then President of the NYC Council, with Cesar Chavez. Photo courtesy of Mark Godfrey/Archive Pictures.
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- NLG attorney Terence Hallinan, beaten by police at San Francisco State, May 1968.
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- 1946 NLG Convention in Detroit.
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- George Crockett (far left) with members of the NLG’s Committee for Legal Assistance in the South, 1962.
