High school and college students like the Howard 20 in Chattanooga, TN, the Tuskegee Institute Advancement League (TIAL), the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), The Black Panther Party for Self-Defense (BPP) and the Alabama State College Student Union were founded in response to the enforcement of unjust laws. With non-violent resistance and positive action, college students of color made significant strides by either bringing lawsuits that challenged the constitutionality of Jim Crow Laws or being defendants in criminal proceedings that emerged from non-protest. Eventually by asking the “epistemological question”, many African American students saw activism as an extension of classroom instruction. In particular, students at Alabama State College emerged as leaders in the charge for civil rights by participating in the Montgomery Bus Boycott, the Selma to Montgomery March, and the subsequent protests that erupted in the city during the time. 

In keeping with this legacy of social justice and legal advocacy, in 2019, students and faculty at Alabama State University and other institutions of higher learning created an organization to provide support to aspiring law students who attend HBCUs. Founded as the HBCU Legal Focus Group, this group would become an advocate for the rights of the incarcerated and underrepresented. At the beginning, the students reached out to faculty who used their network to build a cadre of professional developers, which included local lawyers and faculty from other universities and legal advocates. The group began to have training seminars on law school preparation, which included LSAT prep and visiting area law schools. They also facilitated local civil rights attorneys who spoke to their law classes in person and on social media outlets. Also, the faculty advisors developed a legal advocacy class that students could attend and obtain a certificate of attendance.  

As COVID-19 cases increased, the emphasis shifted to more issue-based topics, including constitutional issues in relation to newly created COVID-19 protocols. From this focus, a troubling observation was made regarding the impact that COVID-19 was having on the nation’s prison population. Specifically, in Alabama, the impact of COVID-19 was devastating to the prison system that was already under the observation of the federal courts under the Bragg v. Dunn Lawsuit. Two other issues that activated student involvement regarding the prison condition was the mass effort to defeat the private prison initiative and the continued fight to stop the use of COVID-19 relief money to build new prisons in Alabama and abroad. The HBCU Legal Focus group became a platform for formerly incarcerated persons, activists, educators, attorneys, and the family members of incarcerated persons. The students held weekly meetings, organized listening sessions, held prison reform conferences via social media, and published articles in national, state and local newspapers and media platforms. The students wrote letters, protested and, with the help of other organizations, confronted the powers-that-be and encouraged these powers to abandon the private prison initiative. As the platform advanced, the student organization gave birth to an organization, The Alabama Legal Focus Group (ALF), which includedprofessionals, citizen scientists, advocates, and concerned citizens.