Judge Jaribu Hill

Judge Jaribu Hill is Founder and Executive Director of the Mississippi Workers’ Center for Human Rights. Jaribu Hill serves as Municipal Judge for the City of Hollandale and is a Special Master for Mental Commitment Cases in Washington County Chancery Court. She is a human rights attorney and a veteran community organizer. Hill is an international human rights pokesperson and a frequent writer and commentator on human rights themes. Jaribu Hill has served as key note speaker and cultural presenter at numerous international convenings, including the World Conference Against Racism in Durban, South Africa and the 1998 Human Rights Defenders’ Summit in Paris, France, in honor of the 50 th Anniversary of the UDHR. At the Front Line Conference in Nantes, France in June 2007, Hill was the featured cultural artist, where she presented a musical and spoken word tribute to Rosa Parks, for whom the event was dedicated. Hill was resident poet and legal observer for the 2000 Women in War Crimes Tribunal in Tokyo, Japan. For this occasion, she penned the acclaimed poem: “Haunting Mirrors,” which was made part of the Tribunal’s final judgment. Hill was a principal commentator during the acclaimed documentary: Murder in Black and White, which aired on TV One cable. She is coauthor of The Black College Guide and author of Knowledge is Power– A Know Your Rights Manual.

Jaribu Hill is the first alum to receive the Dean’s Medal from CUNY Law School and is featured in a special issue of the law school’s magazine as one of the 25 most notable graduates. She is the founding convener of the Southern Human Rights Organizers’ Conference (SHROC). She is the founder of the Fannie Lou Hamer Roundtable and CUNY Law School’s Mississippi Project. After Katrina, Jaribu and the Workers’ Center established the Southern Relief Fund/Witness Delegation, to provide support for victims of Katrina. As former director of the Southern Regional Office of the Center for Constitutional Rights, hill won an important judgment against the Christian Knights of the Ku Klux Klan. She has coordinated cutting edge litigation in the areas of housing as a human right and racially hostile work environments. 

Hill’s scholarly works are featured in numerous publications including: Black Scholar; National Black Law Journal; Southern University Law Review; Associated Trial Lawyers of America Faculty Series and Harvard Law School Civil Rights Journal. She is the recipient of numerous awards and accolades, including the coveted “Gloria” Award, and the R. Jess Brown Award (the highest award given to a lawyer by Mississippi’s Magnolia Bar Assoc.). Hill serves on the Access to Justice Commission, appointed by the Mississippi Supreme Court and is admitted to the United States Supreme Court. Hill also is a former Skadden Fellow and a former Thurgood Marshall Fellow.