JANS – Mississippi revered civil rights attorney, Jaribu Hill, received the 2024 PILA (Public Interest Law Association) Award, Fri., April 19 at CUNY (City University of New York) School of Law. The award is presented to individuals who have made considerable contributions to the legal profession in service of “Human Needs.” Pictured with attorney Hill are Shavani Desai and Kay Escobar, CUNY law students and members of the 2023 Mississippi Project delegation.
This year marks the 30th anniversary of the Project Attorney Hill founded while attending CUNY. The Project came to Mississippi at a time when more than 60 inmates, mostly Black, were found hanging in jails and prisons across the state. The Mississippi Project at CUNY School of Law works to increase justice in the South by sending students to assist the Center in its ongoing work to address all forms of workplace injustices, including racially and sexually hostile environments, wage theft, and other forms of discrimination.
During Attorney Hill’s acceptance speech, she stated, “I am grateful for my blood Mississippi born ancestors.
“Memories of their suffering and their triumph drew me to this life’s work in the Deep South belly of the beast. I thank the late Attorney Chokwe Lumumba, who sent me the Jackson Advocate article about Andre Jones’s lynching and urged me to bring folks to Mississippi to work with him and other people’s lawyers to uncover the truth, build legal strategies, and expose the 20th century terror in Mississippi.
“I accept this award with so much gratitude to those whose courageous lives have shaped mine. It is dedicated to all my relations in the Mississippi Delta – blood and extended. It is dedicated to Ben Chaney, younger brother of lynched civil rights worker, James Chaney. It is dedicated to my mom, the late Elsie R. Banks, and to all the delegates of the MP, if you are here, I am accepting this for you!
“Long live Emmett Till.
Long live Chaney, Goodman and Schwerner.
Long live Fannie Lou Hamer.
Long live Ida B. Wells.
Long live all the disappeared! May we never stop until we get justice for them!”
