Young Black lawyers mobilize to defend democracy
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Roy Wilkins and Thurgood Marshall stand with Autherine Lucy, the first Black student to attend the University of Alabama, during a press conference in New York in 1956. Today, a new generation of Black lawyers is stepping into this legacy — gathering in D.C. to chart long-term strategies for civil rights, voting access, and democracy defense. Photo: Library of Congress/Corbis/VCG via Getty Images
A new generation of Black attorneys is mobilizing — not just to defend democracy, but to build the legal infrastructure needed to protect it for the long haul.
Why it matters: On Thursday, in Washington, D.C., as leaders gather for the Congressional Black Caucus Annual Legislative Conference, more than 50 early career Black lawyers are convening for their own summit: the Black Legal Brain Trust, hosted by the Young Black Lawyers Organizing Coalition (YBLOC).
Flashback: In 1963, President Kennedy convened 244 lawyers at the White House to challenge the bar to protect civil rights. That meeting led to the formation of the Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, bringing together legal professionals across racial lines.
Between the lines: Today, YBLOC is channeling that same spirit.
- Thurgood Marshall, who would later become the first Black U.S. Supreme Court justice, began his career as an NAACP attorney, challenging segregation across the Jim Crow South.
- Marshall argued and won Brown v. Board of Education, putting legal pressure on systems built to exclude Black Americans.
YBLOC's founder, Abdul Dosunmu, says that today's Black attorneys are stepping into that tradition — but facing a different landscape.
Zoom in: The event pushes beyond court battles, focusing on grassroots organizing, community strategy, and messaging power.
- Dosunmu, a civil rights lawyer and former Obama appointee, will lead the gathering, alongside early members like Clarence Okoh (civil rights lawyer in D.C.) and Jessica Paige (attorney and social worker in Dallas).
The big picture: Founded in 2020, YBLOC has already reached 700,000 voters and recently launched Redistricting While Black with the Center for Social Justice in North Carolina. The group has run focus groups and organizing campaigns in Texas, Georgia, Michigan, and North Carolina — all key battlegrounds ahead of 2024.
What they're saying: "This is not our elders' movement or strategy. It has to be different," Dosunmu told Axios.
- "When Thurgood was fighting in the '50s and '60s, he had a target on his back," Dosunmu said. "We do too — but the threats are different, and our strategy has to be too. We can't just react. We have to organize for the long term."
Dosunmu said this is "not just a convening." Rather, it's a "strategic intervention."
- "We are inheriting a legacy, yes — but we're also building something new," Dosunmu said. "This generation of Black lawyers isn't just showing up to defend democracy. We're organizing, strategizing, and laying the legal groundwork for the next fight."
Zoom out: Marc Morial, president of the National Urban League and a featured speaker at Thursday's summit, says today's political climate demands more than legal defense — it demands coordinated resistance.
State of play: Morial, who also convened a Demand Diversity Roundtable at the National Press Club just days after President Trump's inauguration, has been one of the loudest voices warning about the erosion of civil rights protections in federal policy.
- Earlier this year, he called Trump's executive order dismantling affirmative action and DEI protections "an assault on the Civil Rights Movement and everything we've achieved in the last 60 years."
- "We're in a state of emergency. Period. Full stop," Morial told Axios. "You've got a presidential administration calling for the attorney general to prosecute political enemies, calling on media leaders to fire journalists. That's unprecedented in America. In 250 years — unprecedented."
The bottom line: This is their moment — just like it was for Thurgood Marshall or Diane Nash, said Laphonza Butler, a speaker at the Black Legal Brain Trust Summit, focusing on reimagining institutions from state legislatures to the Senate.
- "These young lawyers are taking up the mantle in a new time, facing new challenges, but continuing the fight."
