Civil and Human Rights Advocate Nkechi Taifa Is 2025 Brennan Award Winner
April 03, 2025
The D.C. Bar has named Nkechi Taifa, founder, principal, and CEO of The Taifa Group, LLC, as the recipient of its 2025 William J. Brennan Jr. Award for her significant contributions to improving access to justice. Taifa will be honored at the Bar’s annual Celebration of Leadership on June 26.
Established in 1993, the William J. Brennan Jr. Award is presented to a D.C. Bar member who has demonstrated extraordinary commitment to and initiative in pursuing equal justice and opportunity for all Americans. Taifa considers the award an affirmation of her longstanding commitment and efforts.
“My career has never been about following the conventional path,” she said. “I’ve been a freedom fighter disguised as a lawyer, or maybe the other way around. I’ve pushed the bounds of justice — whether it’s in the criminal legal system, whether it’s in the fight for reparations, whether it’s been inside courtrooms or testifying before Congress, speaking on global stages, or mentoring rising advocates — because I’ve always seen the power of the law as a tool for liberation.”
Taifa has distinguished herself through decades of work, including impactful advocacy, scholarship, and leadership. Her work has been transformative in advancing civil rights and criminal justice reform, advocating for broader equity initiatives such as D.C. statehood, and championing the cause of reparations.
“It really started long before I was even a lawyer,” Taifa said. “Becoming a lawyer was just the next stage in helping to actualize the principles of freedom and justice that have always been near and dear to me. I’ve been involved in many different movements throughout my life.”
In 2020 Taifa published her memoir, Black Power, Black Lawyer, chronicling her involvement in the independent Black schools movement, anti-apartheid movement, the movement to free political prisoners, and the movement against mass incarceration. “I do this work because somebody has to stand up for these principles. I consider it my calling. I consider it my duty. I consider it my path,” she said.
Taifa was commissioner and chair of the D.C. Commission on Human Rights from 2007 to 2014 and, since 2018, has served on the board of the D.C. Corrections Information Council, an independent monitoring body that oversees the conditions of District residents imprisoned by the Federal Bureau of Prisons, the D.C. Department of Corrections, and their partners. Taifa served as advocacy director for criminal justice at the Open Society Foundations and Open Society Policy Center from 2002 to 2018, focusing on sentencing, law enforcement, and prison reform; reentry; executive clemency; and racial justice.
While at Open Society, Taifa founded the Justice Roundtable, a broad-based coalition of more than 100 organizations working to reform federal criminal justice laws and policies. As the Justice Roundtable convener, she was a leading advocate for passage of both the federal Second Chance Act in 2008 and the Fair Sentencing Act in 2010, reducing the disparity between the amount of crack cocaine and powder cocaine needed to trigger certain federal criminal penalties.
From 1995 to 2002, Taifa managed the Equal Justice Program at Howard University School of Law, where she also directed the law school’s externship program and taught as an adjunct professor (1995–2009) leading seminars such as “Racial Disparity in the Criminal Justice System,” Public Interest Law,” and the “Law of Corrections and Prisoners’ Rights.” In addition, she was an adjunct professor at American University Washington College of Law (1997–1999) and taught criminal law to high school students as part of the National Bar Association’s Crump Law Camp (2001–2018).
From 1993 to 1995, as co-chair of the steering committee on D.C. statehood for the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights, Taifa drove efforts that led to a historic first floor vote in Congress on District statehood. Her work with the Leadership Conference’s Voting Rights Task Force supported passage of the National Voter Registration Act (“motor voter law”) in 1993.
Taifa has been a principal player in the reparations movement for more than 40 years. A founding member of the National Coalition of Blacks for Reparations in America, established in 1987, Taifa served as its first legislative commission chair and helped provide guidance and counsel to U.S. Representative John Conyers in the initial drafting of H.R. 40, introduced in 1989. She is an inaugural commissioner of the National African American Reparations Commission, established in 2015. Taifa also served on the Legacy of the GU272 Alliance Legal Team, urging the Jesuits and Georgetown University to make amends for the sale of 272 enslaved Africans in 1838 to benefit the school financially.
In 2021 Taifa founded the Reparation Education Project, which supports reparatory justice initiatives through presentations and trainings to nonprofit organizations; federal, state, and municipal governments; educational and religious institutions; businesses; and more.
Early in her career, Taifa served as staff attorney for the National Prison Project (1984–1987), public policy counsel for the Women’s Legal Defense Fund (1989–1991), and legislative counsel for the American Civil Liberties Union (1991–1995).
Taifa has been a prolific speaker and author on reparations, incarceration, human rights, and other issues. Her publications include law review articles, organizational reports, children’s books, and spoken word performances, in addition to her memoir.
Over the course of her career, Taifa has received numerous awards from a broad range of organizations. Her latest honors include the Champion of Justice Award from the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers (2021), Distinguished 400 Award from the 400 Years of African American History Commission (2021), Equal Justice Award from the UDC David A. Clarke School of Law (2017), and Wiley Branton Award from the National Bar Association (2016).
Taifa paid tribute to those who came before her and issued a rallying to the people who will carry on the work in the future. “It’s not about me,” she said. “It’s really about all those who paved the path, those whose shoulders I stood on, those whom I’ve worked with, and those who are going to be coming after me. So, it’s full circle. I’ve received a lot of awards and honors in the past, but this is the supreme … to be recognized by my legal peers, I could not be prouder.”
