LAW DAY 2004 By Tasha C. Blakney Eldridge & Blakney, P.C., Knoxville, Tennessee For more than 40 years, the American Bar Association has sponsored Law Day programs on May 1st of each year. While local bars vary greatly in their activities and programs, the common goal for the Law Day program is to promote legal education and service to the public by the legal community. This year, the theme for Law Day was a very special one: "To win equality by law, celebrating the 50th anniversary of Brown v. Board of Education." Bar Associations across the country took advantage of this landmark cases' anniversary in order to educate the public about the Brown v. Board of Education decision and its continuing legacy in American jurisprudence. The Tennessee Bar Association was no exception. As part of the Tennessee Bar Association Young Lawyers Division's Law Day activities, we sponsored a state wide art competition for elementary students and a state wide essay competition for Tennessee's high school students. The results were impressive- both in quality and quantity. Ultimately the state wide winners of the Law Day art competition were: • First place - Rachel Welsh of Knoxville's Sequoyah Elementary; • Second place - Emma Loyer of Nashville's West Meade Elementary; • Third place- Ian Odom of Nashville's West Meade Elementary. The winning entry submitted by Rachel Welsh depicted a before and after scene. With vibrant colors, we saw into the mind of a child as she illustrated what it would have been like to wait for separate buses to go to separate schools. All of the elementary students' entries revealed similar creative, thoughtful, and artistic impressions of the impact of the landmark Brown v. Board of Education decision. In the essay competition, the results were as follows: • First place- Cyrus Rahnema of Knoxville • Second place- Martha Elizabeth Lovell of Brownsville • Third place- Stephen Paris of Bells Thank you to each of the Tennessee Bar Association Young Lawyer Division district representatives and local committee chairs who helped to make this year's Law Day competition such a success. In celebrating the fiftieth anniversary of Brown v. Board of Education, we are reminded both of how far we've come and how much work we still need to do. Perhaps most importantly, however, we have educated the students in the State of Tennessee and have taught them the lesson that separate can never be equal. In the words of our winning essayist, "this landmark decision was more than an issue concerning young Linda Brown and her education; it was beyond the focused efforts of the NAACP lawyers, above the traditions and opinions of the closed-minded factions who opposed it; the fiftieth anniversary of Brown v. Board of Education is a testament to the importance, the impact, and the undeniable step towards greater equality in this nation."