Amirah Lockhart

I was inspired to go into law by my grandmother, who always talked about how she wanted to go into law but wasn't afforded those opportunities growing up and living in Mississippi in the 60s and 70s. That wasn't really an option for women like her. Having her be such a great support to me, always encouraging me, and seeing how charitable she was and how she carried herself, and was always able to utilize those skills without the professional education, just made me want to get my degree in something professional and really be able to do the things that the women before me were not able to. I was actually homeschooled by her mother, my great-grandmother, when I was in elementary school, and she taught me so much that I don't think I'll ever compare to any teacher I've ever had or will have. My senior year of undergrad at the University of Mississippi, I was the president of and leader of various student political organizations. That year, me and a lot of our other Black student leaders were able to convey a lot of our major points of what we wanted, what the future of the school wanted, and what we wanted for our state. We were able to get the Confederate flag removed as the state flag and replaced with the new Mississippi state flag. I would say that's probably my greatest professional achievement, just by what it means to me, my family, my family who I've never even met that lived in Mississippi all those years under that flag that represented all those things to them and against them. For that to be taken down officially because of advocacy and work that I did with other student leaders, other faculty and staff of the school, of all the various colleges and universities in Mississippi, that was really great to see.