Law Archives - Page 16 of 34

Mary Ellen Pleasant

Mary Ellen Pleasant was perhaps the most powerful Black woman in Gold Rush-era San Francisco.

In 1884, she tried to enroll her eight-year-old daughter Mamie at a white public school in San Francisco. When school authorities turned Mamie away because of her Chinese ancestry, Mary and her husband sued the Board of Education. The lawsuit became a landmark civil rights case for public school desegregation.

Dr Souheir Edelbi

Seeds of commitment to Palestinian liberation began to sow in Souheir Edelbi at a young age as she learned about the Nakba and oppression faced by Palestinians from her father.

Annette Gordon-Reed

No historian has done more to recover the stories of enslaved African-Americans than Annette Gordon-Reed, whose 2008 book The Hemingses of Monticello: An American Family won the 2009 Pulitzer Prize in History, as well as wide acclaim.

Kitty Payne

Catherine “Kitty” Payne was an enslaved woman in the U.S. in the 1800s

Norma Jean Serena

Serena, a Native American woman, filed a civil lawsuit in 1974 seeking damages for violations of her constitutional rights to procreate and bear children

Sau Ung Loo Chan

As a Yale Law graduate and the first Asian American woman lawyer in Hawai’i, she became an advocate for Chinese Americans, restored U.S. citizenship for her family, and fought for broader immigrant rights.

Anna Bennett Bland

Anna Bennett Bland was a principal in a court case that resulted in the Virginia General Assembly losing its status as the court of last appeal in the colony.

Anjali Sharma

Anjali Sharma’s passion for climate justice goes beyond her concern for the environment and includes supporting First Nations people, racial equality, gender equality and marginalised communities.