The LVNBA is Nevada’s first and only National Bar Association (NBA) affiliate.
The NBA is the nation’s oldest minority bar and largest national association of predominately African-American lawyers and judges. It has 84 affiliate chapters in the United States and affiliations in Canada, the United Kingdom, Africa and the Caribbean. There are over 44,000 NBA members: lawyers, judges, educators and law students. The NBA and its affiliates address legal, social, and economic issues that disproportionately affect African-American communities.
The objectives of the NBA “…shall be to advance the science of jurisprudence; improve the administration of justice; preserve the independence of the judiciary and to uphold the honor and integrity of the legal profession; to promote professional and social intercourse among the members of the American and the international bars; to promote legislation that will improve the economic condition of all American citizens, regardless of race, sex or creed in their efforts to secure a free and untrammeled use of the franchise guaranteed by the Constitution of the United States; and to protect the civil and political rights of the citizens and residents of the United States.”
The NBA was established in Des Moines, Iowa in 1925. Of the fewer than 1,000 African-American lawyers in the United States at the time, twelve percent belonged to the newly founded NBA. The NBA was created when the American Bar Association (ABA) was racially segregated and did not allow African-Americans to join. Although the ABA changed its policy several decades later, the NBA and its affiliates continue to address the legal issues and social, economic disparities that are unique to the African-American community.
Sources: National Bar Association Annual Report 2010; http://www.nationalbar.net/objectives_of_the_NBA.
