NBLSA participate in Imoja Lecture Series at Eugene Dupuch Law School in Bahamas

NBLSA Executive Board Members participate in Imoja Lecture Series at Eugene Dupuch Law School in the Bahamas.

For immediate release: January 17, 2007

Nassau, Bahamas---- Members of the National Black Law Student Association's (“NBLSA”) National Executive Board traveled in a delegation to Eugene Dupuch Law School in Nassau, Bahamas last week. Representing NBLSA were International Relations Chair, Pratima T. Narayan, National Director of Programming, Kira Brereton, Reparations Director, Malika Graham-Bailey, and Death Penalty Moratorium Chair, Eddie L. Koen Jr.

Upon arriving in Nassau, the NBLSA representatives joined the Director of the Eugene Dupuch Law School's Legal Aid Clinic, A. Dion Hanna Jr., to facilitate a workshop in mediation and alternative dispute resolution for students. This March, NBLSA will be hosting its first International Negotiations Competition in Boston, Massachusetts. In addition to gaining the attention of students from across the country, the Competition has also attracted teams from Canada, Kenya, and India.

The following day, the NBLSA members participated in a panel discussion as part of the Imoja Lecture Series at the Eugene Dupuch Law School. Narayan moderated the discussion and presented on NBLSA's new international programs and its International Law Student Division ("ILSD"). Brereton offered information on NBLSA's history, organizational structure, and its programs.

The panel discussion focused primarily on reparations and the death penalty as they relate to members of the African Diaspora throughout the Americas and the Caribbean. Hanna presented some alarming statistics, drawing attention to his concern that "100% of the people on death row in the Bahamas are black." Koen debated with several students, explaining, "As an organization, we take no moral position on capital punishment but we take an affirmative stance on justice. We believe the legal system is not perfect enough to institute capital punishment. This is continually proven by the alarming error rate in capital cases and exonerees." When challenged by the students regarding the need for reparations in the Bahamas, Graham-Bailey stated, "Reparations are not simply checks cut to distribute to victims in the Diaspora. The Movement is more about repairing and
rebuilding communities through government- or corporate-sponsored investment back into our communities."

Before leaving the Bahamas, the four National Executive Board Members welcomed students to join the organization’s International Law Student Division. This year, NBLSA has also established chapters of the ILSD in Barbados, Ghana, Kenya, and Uganda.

NBLSA is the largest student-run organization in America, and represents over 6,000 Black law students at over 200 law schools across the country. Recently, NBLSA established international links with Black law students in Canada, England and South Africa who modeled their student organizations after NBLSA. For more information, please contact National Director of Communications, Bari Williams: Bari.Williams@gmail.com.