Justice Above All The Legal Defense Fund

May 2024 marks 70 years since the U.S. Supreme Court issued its landmark ruling in Brown v. Board of Education declaring the “separate but equal” doctrine unconstitutional and marking a new standard for American education.This episode is part one of a special three-part arc to commemorate the 70th anniversary of Brown, which dismantled legal racial apartheid in the United States and radically reshaped American life. The series will dive into the history and legacy of this groundbre...

On the season three opener of Justice Above All, host and Thurgood Marshall Institute Senior Researcher, Dr. Sandhya Kajeepeta explores the state of felony disenfranchisement. Across the country, previously incarcerated individuals are forced to navigate complex, bureaucratic processes in order to exercise their constitutional right to vote. In the past few years, we’ve seen increased criminalization of voting through new laws and the creation of election policing units, all under the guise o...

On this episode of Justice Above All, Thurgood Marshall Institute summer research fellows explored food apartheid. The fellows investigated the struggle to access quality food in the United States and on this special episode of the show, they're sharing what their research revealed about the deep, systemic legacy of food apartheid in Black communities across the country. Guests: Dr. Wilma Clopton, Amalea Smirniotopolous, David Wheaton If you enjoyed this episode please ...

Elijah McCoy, Garret Morgan, George Washington Carver, and Madame CJ Walker are names you might recognize. They're Black inventors whose inventions modernized the world. But they may also be the only names you recognize when you think of Black inventors. Due to racism and other discriminatory structural barriers, potential Black inventors have been locked out, or in some cases violently forced out, of invention pipelines. On this episode of Justice Above All, Dr. Kesha Moore, TMI Researc...

In 2022, LDF made its return to the Supreme Court for the first time in seven years. Every year, LDF submits a few amicus briefs in various civil rights cases to the Court, but an LDF attorney had not delivered an oral argument before the Court since Buck v. Davis. But in 2022, Deuel Ross, LDF’s Deputy Director of Litigation, argued before the Supreme Court on behalf of Black Alabama voters in Allen v. Milligan. LDF challenged Alabama’s unconstitutional congressional map that denied Black vot...

On this episode, host Dr. Sandhya Kajeepeta, TMI Senior Researcher, chronicles how school board elections and meetings were once bastions of Black political power but have now become sites of charged debates, takeovers, and infiltrated by groups outside of the actual districts . Using Charleston as a case study, Dr. Kajeepeta illustrates how school board meetings and elections became so intense and why they should matter to anyone who cares about democracy. Guests: Est Mungai, LDF S...