Adjoa Aiyetoro facts for kids
Adjoa Aiyetoro is a lawyer and an activist who has worked hard to make things fair for people. She used to lead a group called the National Conference of Black Lawyers. She also helped a group called the National Coalition of Blacks for Reparations in America (N'COBRA), which works on reparations. Today, she is a respected retired professor at the William H. Bowen School of Law at the University of Arkansas, Little Rock.
Education and Teaching Career
Adjoa Aiyetoro went to Clark University and earned her first degree in 1967. She then got a master's degree in social work from George Warren Brown School of Social Work at Washington University in St. Louis in 1969. Later, she earned her law degree (J.D.) from Saint Louis University School of Law in 1978.
After becoming a lawyer, she taught law at several universities. She taught at the Washington College of Law and the University of California, Santa Barbara. She also taught at West Virginia University College of Law. Since 2004, she taught at the William H. Bowen School of Law, where she is now a Professor Emerita. She taught classes on topics like how courts work, how to fix past wrongs, and how to understand different viewpoints on race.
Law and Legal Advocacy
Adjoa Aiyetoro has spent her career working for justice. From 1978 to 1982, she worked for the United States Department of Justice Civil Rights Division. There, she focused on cases involving people in special facilities.
From 1982 to 1993, she worked for the American Civil Liberties Union's National Prison Project. In this role, she helped people who were in prison.
She became the executive director of the National Conference of Black Lawyers (NCBL) from 1993 to 1997. During this time, she helped with the case of Geronimo Ji-Jaga Pratt. He was a Black Panther who needed help with his release from prison. She also worked to make the organization run more smoothly.
While at NCBL, she spoke up for many important issues. These included fair treatment in the justice system and for people in prison. She also advocated for environmental justice, which means everyone should have a healthy environment. She supported making Washington, D.C. a state. She also worked on reparations for African Americans. Reparations are ways to make up for past wrongs, like slavery.
From 1997 to 2002, Aiyetoro was the main legal advisor for the National Coalition of Blacks for Reparations in America (N'COBRA). She was part of a legal team that tried to help the descendants of the Tulsa Greenwood Massacre. This was a terrible event where a Black community was attacked. The team sued the state of Oklahoma to get justice for the victims' families.
In 1988, Aiyetoro worked with Congressman John Conyers. They worked on a bill called H.R. 60. This bill aimed to create a group to study reparations for African Americans in the United States.
Selected Publications
Adjoa Aiyetoro has written many articles and reports. These include:
- "Truth Matters: A Call for the American Bar Association to Acknowledge Its Past and Make Reparations to African Descendants" (2007)
- "Can We Talk? How Triggers for Unconscious Racism Strengthen the Importance of Dialogue" (2009)
- "Historic and Modern Social Movements for Reparations: The National Coalition for Reparations in America (N’COBRA) and its Antecedents" (2010, with Adrienne D. Davis)
- "Why Reparations to African Descendants in the United States Are Essential to Democracy" (2011)
- "Racial Disparities in Punishments and Alienation: Rebelling for Justice" (2014)
- "African Descendant Women and the Global Reparations Movement," in Black Women and International Law: Deliberate Interactions, Movements and Actions (2015)
