Johnnie Rawlinson remembers the day Brown v. Board of Education passed in 1954, marking a legal end to segregated schools in the United States. Before that court decision, the classrooms in her elementary school were comprised by her familiar Black community members, the peers she grew up around and the teachers with whom she attended church.
Then, without transition or preparation, Rawlinson and her classmates were stripped from that beloved school. She recalls that her classmates didn’t jump at the opportunity to be seated among white students, nor did the white students know how to interact with Black peers.
The negative impact settled in, she says. Several of Rawlinson’s fellow Black students were pushed into vocational paths while she, often a lone Black voice in a sea of white students on a college track, was labeled “racist” for refuting their arguments that Black people should return to Africa, she remembers.
But Rawlinson’s experience wasn’t all bad, she says. As she grew up, she became a leader among her Black peers, earning spots as her high school’s first Black Honor Society member and its first Black cheerleader.
Later, she would become the first female judge in the U.S. District Court for Nevada in 1998, appointed by President Bill Clinton. Then in 2000, she was selected to the U.S. District Court of Appeals in the Ninth Circuit, where she currently serves.
Clockwise from top left: Rawlinson, Scott, Douglas and Williams
Back in high school, it was clear to Rawlinson that racial representation, especially in legal spaces, allows for differing, necessary perspectives. Now, as conversations ramp up about President Joe Biden’s promise to fill outgoing Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer’s vacancy with a Black woman, Rawlinson calls such an appointment “long overdue.”
“There have already been people talking about, if this is an African American woman, she has to be unqualified, and that’s just unfathomable to me,” Rawlinson said during the February 1 panel “Leaders in Law: Celebrating Nevada’s Black Legal Trail Blazers” at the Mob Museum. “I think that one of the things that I bring to the court, that many of the others have not lived through, is the racism just faced by us, virtually on a daily basis.”
“Leaders in Law,” jointly presented by the Mob Museum, the Clark County Black Caucus and NV Energy for Black History Month, highlighted four Black legal leaders in Nevada: Rawlinson; Michael Douglas, the first Black justice in the Nevada Supreme Court; Bryan Scott, the first (and current) Black city attorney for the City of Las Vegas; and Tim Williams, who was appointed to the District Court bench in 2006.
In Nevada, Black people make up a small percentage of judges and legal professionals, due to gaps in access to law school and post-college opportunities, panel moderator Shakala Alvaranga, director of public programs for the Mob Museum, said during the discussion.
All seven of Nevada’s current Supreme Court justices are white. Across the U.S., approximately 5% of all lawyers are Black, while Black Americans account for 13% of the total population, according to a 2020 American Bar Association study.
Alvaranga said the panel spotlighted experts who have seen the legal landscape change throughout their careers. “We’re honored to have individuals who have been in the legal field for so long and have seen the changes over the years to share their insight into what is happening now and what we can do in the future,” she said.
The panelists discussed their careers, persevering through racial inequality in law school and law work, the necessity of equal representation in the law and how they hope to fill those gaps as leaders in the field. The discussion also explored the panelists’ lives before they became lawyers. Some attributed their success to the support of their families.
Scott, who was ratified as the city attorney by the City Council in 2020, said his law career would not be possible without his mother. Her 1952 high school diploma, which came from a segregated school in Texas, hangs in his office in City Hall.
“She put me through law school herself, a single mother,” he said. “I do thank her because of … her sacrifices and what she did for us, through her deeds and through her actions and through her words, her faith in us and in God got us through and after my biggest goal.”
The panelists were trailblazers from the start of their careers. When Douglas passed the bar exam in 1982, he was one of five Black students to do so that year.
After moving between Pennsylvania and California, Douglas settled in Nevada, where he did pro bono work for Nevada’s poorest residents. He was then appointed as the first Black Supreme Court justice in Nevada’s history in 2004, and his term ended in 2019.
That year, UNLV Boyd School of Law launched the Justice Michael L. Douglas PreLaw Fellowship Program, which educates students from diverse communities about legal jobs and the path to law school.
“The phrase that we used was, ‘Getting the best and the brightest to come back home,’” he said. “For us, it was the beginning of bringing back the best and the brightest to Las Vegas to practice in the future.”
Williams spoke about his experience bringing the district court to Canyon Springs High School for an annual visit, so students could view a case play out in real time. That educational experience made the judicial system less opaque for young people, he said, something essential for those seeking a career in law.
And for those not interested in becoming lawyers or judges, Williams stressed that serving on juries can be a direct way for residents to exercise their democratic rights.
“I think as African Americans, some of us overlook the true power of the jury,” he said. “If you want to participate in the process and make change … go vote and when you get that summons in the mail, as it pertains to jury service, take advantage of that, and go down and serve the citizens of Clark County.”
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