The National Lawyers Guild (NLG) is proud to announce a new sustainable partnership with
Know Your Rights Camp
(KYRC), founded by Colin Kaepernick. KYRC's mission is to advance the
liberation and well-being of Black and Brown communities through
education, self-empowerment, and mass mobilization.
KYRC and NLG will partner to expand legal support for social justice
movements and increase capacity for providing legal resources for
freedom fighters arrested in relation to the movement for Black lives.
The agreement includes a $500,000 grant to the National Lawyers Guild
Foundation. "This inspiring grant will help the NLG strengthen digital
security for mass defense organizing, assist chapters with mass defense
infrastructure, expand criminal defense preparations, and create timely
new know-your-rights publications," said NLG Executive Director Pooja
Gehi.
This partnership builds on decades of mass defense organizing by the
NLG and the recent work of Kaepernick's KYRC. The grant will be used in
part to support the NLG's growing infrastructure of 65 chapters and 125
student chapters across the country. During the protests following the
killing of George Floyd and many others, the NLG has played an important
role in supporting activists and the
movement for Black lives. The NLG has provided
jail and legal support to arrested activists,
tracked federal prosecution efforts, and trained and deployed thousands of
Legal Observers.
The NLG's mass defense efforts serve to strengthen its continued
support for various intersectional social justice movements, including
health and housing rights, labor struggles, environmental justice,
immigration, anti-police violence, LGBTQ rights, disability rights,
international solidarity, and abolition of the prison-industrial
complex.
The NLG is a proud endorser of
#8toAbolition,
which calls for defunding police, investing in communities, and freeing
people from jails and prisons. "Abolitionism is a crucial component of
the NLG's mass defense efforts because both seek to dismantle the
institutions most responsible for driving the racist exploitation of
Black and Brown communities and political repression of activists," said
NLG Director of Mass Defense Tyler Crawford. The NLG recognizes and
welcomes the recent increased public support for abolition movements and
dedicates itself to continuing to support communities working to make
this a reality.
The NLG was formed in 1937 and was the first racially integrated bar
association in the United States. The NLG has provided mass defense
since 1969 along with its
mass defense committee
(MDC). The MDC is a network of lawyers, legal workers, law students,
and jailhouse lawyers who provide legal support for activists,
protesters, and movements for social change. In addition to providing
direct legal support to movements, the
mass defense program
also distributes know-your-rights materials,
hosts reports on state responses to movements, and its widely
recognizable green Legal Observer hats are a prominent feature at
protests around the country.
Featured image: NLG Legal Observers document arrests during a #NoDAPL protest in New York City, 2016.
The National Lawyers Guild, whose membership includes lawyers,
legal workers, jailhouse lawyers, and law students, was formed in 1937
as the United States’ first racially-integrated bar association to
advocate for the protection of constitutional, human and civil rights.