Back

Celebrating 50 Years of Black Excellence


Northeastern Law’s Black Law Students Association (BLSA) Kemet Chapter was founded in 1971. On December 3, 2021, we celebrated the 50th anniversary of BLSA at the School of Law with a celebratory event featuring commemorative speeches, hors d’oeuvres and cocktails. Guest speakers included Dean James Hackney, keynote speaker Rachael Rollins ’97, Joseph Feaster, Jr. ’75 and Genevievre Miller ’23.

>> View photo gallery

There are two funds supporting BLSA.

  • The Black Law Students Association Scholarship Fund will provide scholarship funding to one or more students of Black descent who are studying law and are members of the BLSA, with a preference given to those in financial need. Candidates must be full-time graduate students at the School of Law.
    To contribute, please visit: https://giving.northeastern.edu/live/profiles/1181-black-law-students-association-scholarship
  • Additionally, you can support the Black Law Student Association, Kemet Chapter through the SMR Fund. The SMR Fund was created in honor of the former School of Law Professor and BLSA advisor Susan Maze-Rothstein, lovingly referred to as SMR. Your gift will ensure that the Kemet Chapter may continue the historic traditions of BLSA, including the 1L induction, providing gifts and stoles for BLSA's graduating third-year law students, and sponsoring BLSA students’ participation in various conferences. Donations to the SMR Fund help ensure that BLSA members can continue to uplift and celebrate each other both through their time-honored traditions and new initiatives.
    To contribute, please vist: https://giving.northeastern.edu/live/profiles/801-club-black-law-student-association-kemet-chapter

Speakers include
Dean James Hackney
Genevievre Miller ’23, BLSA Chair
Joseph Feaster, Jr. ’75, An early BLSA president, after the 1971 founding.

Keynote by
Suffolk County DA Rachael Rollins ’97

Join the Conversation
To participate in conversations related to the BLS Celebration, please use the hashtag #NUSLBLSA50

Suffolk County District Attorney Rachael Rollins is the chief law enforcement officer for Boston, Chelsea, Revere, and Winthrop, Massachusetts. She is the first woman ever elected as District Attorney in Suffolk County and the first woman of color ever elected District Attorney in Massachusetts.

Since taking office in 2019, Rollins has implemented humane and data-supported policies that no longer criminalize mental health issues, substance use disorders, food and housing insecurities, and immigration status, instead focusing her limited resources on the most violent and serious crimes and keeping Suffolk County safe. Among some of her larger initiatives and policy implementations are her first in nation Discharge Integrity Team to help investigate officer involved shootings and allegations of excessive force. The DIT consists of a community member, a criminal defense attorney, a retired judge, and a member of law enforcement.  Rollins also created an Integrity Review Bureau that looks not only at post-conviction claims of actual innocence, but also reviews unconstitutional, unethical, and unjust convictions, as well as sentencing disparities. Over 240 years of wrongful convictions, and counting, have been overturned by her IRB. An attorney for over 20 years, Rollins previously worked as a federal prosecutor at the United States Attorney’s Office in Boston. She also served as General Counsel for the Massachusetts Department of Transportation and the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority, and as Chief Legal Counsel for the Massachusetts Port Authority.

Rollins was a Governor Deval Patrick appointee to the Judicial Nominating Commission and a past president of the Massachusetts Black Lawyers Association. She has been honored as the Massachusetts Lawyers Weekly’s Lawyer of the Year in 2018; The Boston Globe’s Bostonian of the Year and Emerge Massachusetts’ Woman of the Year in 2019; and one of the Boston Business Journal’s Power 50 Exceptional Leaders in 2020.

Remembering with deep pride and gratitude 
Professor Denise Carty-Bennia, BLSA's Founding Faculty Advisor

Dec 3, 2021

6:00 pm to 8:00 pm