Left to right: Charlotte Mathews-Nelson with Professor Rose Zoltek-Jick, Malcolm Clarke, Olivia Strange and Dr. Deborah A. Jackson; President Joseph E. Aoun and Mathews-Nelson; Mathews-Nelson's meritorious service award; Mathews-Nelson and Dean James Hackney.
01.18.24 — Charlotte Mathews-Nelson, a Northeastern University graduate and program coordinator for Northeastern Law’s Center for Law, Equity and Race (CLEAR), was honored with a meritorious service citation at Northeastern University’s annual Martin Luther King Day Celebration, on Thursday, January 11, 2024. Mathews-Nelson was lauded for leading by example: through community service, activism and a commitment to standing up to injustice. Titled “A Tribute to the Dream,” the event featured remarks by Northeastern University President Joseph E. Aoun as well as a conversation between Imari K. Paris Jeffries, president and CEO of Embrace Boston, and Richard Harris, Northeastern University associate dean of diversity, equity and inclusion. Jeffries and Harris discussed the evolution of “The Embrace” — a memorial to Martin Luther King and Coretta Scott King erected on Boston Common in 2023. Mathews-Nelson is among 69 civil rights leaders whose names are inscribed on the paving stones surrounding the monument, in honor of their contribution to the ongoing fight for racial equity.
After an introduction by undergraduate student Jaela Eaton, who called Mathews-Nelson “a fierce leader and advocate of civil rights,” Mathews-Nelson took to the stage to receive the citation from Dean James Hackney. “I am not normally speechless,” said Mathews-Nelson, “but I’m very emotional on listening to how I’ve been so fortunate, perhaps by design, to do what was put in my hands to do.”
Mathews-Nelson, whose career at Northeastern began in 1979, spoke of her pride and joy in seeing how the university’s relationship with Greater Boston has evolved and strengthened over decades.“Thank you for being my extended family for 45 years,” said Mathews-Nelson. “I am humbled that this is happening today.”
Mathews-Nelson, born during the Jim Crow era in Jefferson County, Florida, was raised in Dade County by politically active parents, involved with neighborhood groups focused on attaining Black voting rights. After graduating high school, Mathews-Nelson was sent to care for an aunt in Brockton, Massachusetts. Upon completion of her studies at business school, Mathew-Nelson soon found discrimination alive and well in the North just as it was in the South: Mathews-Nelson interviewed for a position as a bookkeeper at a military uniform supplier, only to be told “flatly to my face that they weren’t ready to hire anyone Black in the administrative office,” she told the law school’s Civil Rights and Restorative Justice Project in a recent interview.
Mathews-Nelson took a job pressing uniforms, but her experiences strengthened her commitment to activism and lifelong work with the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP). In the early 1980s, Mathews-Nelson brought the NAACP’s Afro-Academic, Cultural, Technological, and Scientific Olympics (AACT-SO) to Boston, and served as the NAACP’s New England Area Conference president for five consecutive terms, overseeing branches in Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Rhode Island and Vermont.
At Northeastern, Mathews-Nelson has worked in the Graduate School of Education, the Executive Vice President’s Office of Strategic Planning, and Career and Employment Services. She has also served as co-chair of DEI affinity group, the Black Faculty and Staff Association. While working at the university, she attended night-school and earned her BS in business administration. She joined Northeastern Law’s Civil Rights and Restorative Justice Project in 2022 and currently supports CLEAR Director Dr. Deborah A. Jackson, organizing conferences, workshops and events.
“I hope that it is an example, especially to the young people in the room,” said Mathews-Nelson last week. “You can do this if you have a heart, and a soul and a mind of service. Thank you.”
About Northeastern University School of Law
The nation’s leader in experiential legal education since 1968, Northeastern University School of Law offers the longest-running, most extensive experience-based legal education program in the country. Northeastern guarantees its students unparalleled practical legal work experiences through its signature Cooperative Legal Education Program. More than 1,000 employers worldwide in a wide range of legal, government, nonprofit and business organizations participate in the program. With a focus on social justice and innovation, Northeastern University School of Law blends theory and practice, providing students with a unique set of skills and experiences to successfully practice law.
For more information, contact d.feldman@northeastern.edu