For February, Black History Month, Sopris Sun illustrator Larry Day will highlight an influential African American person each week, accompanied by an illustration.
Sherrilyn Ifill began her career as a fellow at the American Civil Liberties Union, establishing a distinguished name for herself as a civil rights attorney and scholar. While serving as president and director-counsel of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People Legal Defense and Educational Fund, from 2013 to 2022, she led the fight for crucial civil rights issues such as voter suppression, inequality in education and racial discrimination.
A professor at the University of Maryland Law School for 20 years, she then joined the faculty at Howard University School of Law and established the 14th Amendment Center. She is also a fellow of the Ford Foundation, focusing on the 14th Amendment expressed in the arts.
The recipient of numerous honorary degrees, Ifill was named among TIME Magazine’s “100 Most Influential People in the World” in 2021. She earned the Radcliffe Medal, the Brandeis Medal, the Thurgood Marshall Award from the American Bar Association and the Gold Medal from the New York State Bar Association. Ifill is the author of “On the Courthouse Lawn,” published in 2007. Her forthcoming book about our democratic crisis is titled: “Is This America?”
“At this moment of democratic crisis in our country, we must return to the 14th Amendment and its powerful and pragmatic conception of a post-Civil War America grounded in the values of equality, justice and a reimagined vision of citizenship. That vision includes a clear-eyed confrontation with the stubborn persistence of white-supremacy and its ongoing threat to the promise of our new country.” – Sherrilyn Ifill