ACLU of the District of Columbia's Bill of Rights Celebration honors outstanding people in our community who fight to advance civil liberties and rights. This year, we’ll be celebrating our 60th anniversary as well as some very worthy awardees, one being Samantha Davis and Black Swan Academy. 

Samantha Davis and Black Swan Academy (BSA) are receiving the Henry W. Edgerton Civil Liberties Award. This award is named after Judge Henry W. Edgerton, a professor of law appointed to the US Court of Appeals in D.C. by President Roosevelt.  He served for 30 years and left behind a legacy of excellence. This award is given to someone who, like Judge Edgerton, has an unwavering commitment to justice as well as a strong character and a warm heart.  

 Samantha Davis founded Black Swan Academy in 2013 to create a pipeline of Black youth civic leaders. The young people of Black Swan Academy, as a collective, also have the distinction of being the youngest-ever recipient of the Edgerton Award – an achievement that is very well deserved! 

Fighting to end the school-to-prison pipeline in D.C., Samantha Davis and Black Swan Academy empower Black youth in under-served communities through civic leadership and engagement. Samantha and BSA’s members are leading voices in the urgent conversation around policing reform in D.C., especially through successful advancements in their Police Free Schools Campaign. 

One of their many advancements was in the summer of 2021, when BSA successfully lobbied the D.C. Council to remove police from schools.  As a result, the Committee on Judiciary and Public Safety voted unanimously to phase out – with the intention of eventually eliminating – school resource officer programs in D.C. between 2022 and 2025. An ACLU report, Cops and No Counselors showed that schools with police reported 3.5 times as many arrests of children as schools without police, and have higher rates of suspensions and expulsions. They are frequently forcing students with disabilities and students of color to be sent into the criminal legal system. This shift that BSA pushed for the Council to implement will be important for Black and brown students (Black girls especially), students with disabilities, and LGBTQ students, who are disproportionately harmed by police in schools. 

In addition to being the Founder, Samantha Davis is also the Executive Director of BSA. She currently serves on the Black Women & Girls Advocacy Taskforce and the Self Development of People national committee of Presbyterian Church USA. Her work has been recognized by American University, Pittsburgh Public Schools, Boys & Girls Club of Greater Washington, the National Urban League, and among Essence's 2019 Woke100. 

Samantha believes that everyone has the innate ability to succeed, but they must be given the opportunity to do so. We think Black Swan Academy does exactly that. These awardees and more will be honored on November 8 at 7 p.m., where we’ll look back on 60 years of civil rights litigation and advocacy at one of the ACLU’s key affiliates and share in our hope for the future alongside our honorees, staff, and members. Make sure you rsvp for the event today! 

While D.C. might not have a full voting member in Congress, it certainly has a dynamic advocate and civil rights leader in Congresswoman Eleanor Holmes Norton. She has been a champion for the almost 700,000 residents in the District for 30 years in Congress. As a third-generation Washingtonian, Congresswoman Norton has been a part of the lifelong struggle for universal human and civil rights. One of the issues she unrelentingly works on is the denial of full voting rights for D.C. residents, the majority of whom are Black and brown. The lack of D.C. statehood is an egregious example of ongoing voter suppression happening in our country today.

Congresswoman Norton came to Congress already a civil rights and feminist leader. As a student at Antioch College, she led her local NAACP chapter and engaged in local civil rights demonstrations. While in law school at Yale, she traveled to Mississippi with the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) to use her First Amendment rights to confront racial segregation. She once wrote about the experience saying “We demanded our rights in the streets, at lunch counters, and at other public places in nonviolent confrontations wherever power could be challenged. Power presented itself as outright racial segregation in the South, and as unavoidable racial discrimination in the North. Our most effective ammunition were demonstrations and other forms of activism. We were beholden to the First Amendment to make our case.”

Coming out of law school, she volunteered as legal counsel for the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party, who challenged the Mississippi Democrats’ practice of blocking Black political participation.

In 1965, she was hired by the national ACLU. Soon after, she helped bring a landmark civil liberties case, Carroll v. Town of Princess Anne, which would lead to her arguing before the Supreme Court at just 31 years old. The ACLU’s client, the National States’ Rights Party, called themselves a white supremacist organization and were barred from holding a rally in Maryland. Reflecting back on the case years later, she said, “I defended the First Amendment, and you seldom get to defend the First Amendment by defending people you like ... You don't know whether the First Amendment is alive and well until it is tested by people with despicable ideas.”

She’s also well known for her women’s rights advocacy. Working as Assistant Legal Director at the ACLU, in 1970 she represented a group of 46 female employees of Newsweek when only men were allowed to be reporters and the women were only allowed to be researchers. Newsweek settled shortly after they filed suit, paving the way for women to be reporters at Newsweek and across the industry.

In her role as the head of the New York City Human Rights Commission, she worked to raise awareness of the application of the Civil Rights Act to sex discrimination and held the first hearings on discrimination against women. She was appointed by President Jimmy Carter to be the first female chair of the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. She became a tenured professor of Law at Georgetown University before being elected to Congress in 1990, where she’s serving her 15th term.

“I continue to value the indispensable work of the ACLU, particularly today as a Member of Congress. Those fighting to defend civil liberties and freedom in the face of ongoing attacks continue to look to the leadership of the ACLU.” - Congresswoman Eleanor Holmes Norton

On November 8, Congresswoman Eleanor Holmes Norton will receive the Arthur B. Spitzer Lifetime Achievement Award during our Bill of Rights Celebration for demonstrating a deep and enduring commitment to civil liberties over the course of her lifetime.

Make sure you RSVP for the Bill of Rights Celebration on Monday, November 8, as we celebrate our 60th anniversary and honor Congresswoman Norton and other outstanding people in our community who fight to advance civil liberties and rights.