Nationally known drug policy reform lawyer and activist, Deborah Peterson Small, will be the keynote speaker at the KCBA’s annual Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Luncheon on Friday, January 14, 2005.

Ms. Small’s life has exemplified the struggles of a new generation of civil rights activists. She was among the first generation of students to be bused from her neighborhood in Oceanhill-Brownsville as part of New York City’s effort to end de facto school segregation. Soon after graduating from high school, Ms. Small became an organizer with a national youth campaign, establishing the first state-wide voter registration drive on campuses throughout the State University of New York system. She later went on to work as an apprentice to Bayard Rustin, famous civil rights activist and organizer of the 1963 March on Washington, at the A. Philip Randolph Institute.

Later, after a year as an outreach worker for a community based organization in Buffalo, Ms. Small returned to New York with her infant son and entered the City College of New York as a student in the alternative legal education program started by the late civil rights attorney Haywood Burns, graduating magna cum laude in 1983. She went on from there to graduate study as a joint degree student at Harvard University’s School of Law and Kennedy School of Public Policy.

Following her admission to the bar, Ms. Small practiced law for several years in the private sector with the New York City law firms of Fried, Frank, Harris, Shriver & Jacobson and Anderson Kill Olick & Oshinsky. But she soon returned to her true passion, public interest work, serving first as Chief of Staff to New York State Assemblyman Vito J. Lopez, who continues to represent one of the poorest neighborhoods in New York City.

Ms. Small subsequently became Legislative Director for the New York Civil Liberties Union (NYCLU), advocating for statutory reform to protect the rights and lives of the poor, disenfranchised and incarcerated. It was during this period that Ms. Small became an ardent advocate for drug policy reform, as she became increasingly troubled by the racially disparate harm caused by the “war on drugs.” She left the NYCLU in 1998 and for six years was Director of Public Policy & Community Outreach for the Drug Policy Alliance.

Ms. Small is at the forefront of a national movement seeking to change our nation’s failed drug policies. She helped bring public attention and legal support to the victims of the infamous drug sting and prosecutions in Tulia, Texas. She continues to work tirelessly to promote reform of New York’s draconian “Rockefeller Drug Laws” and helped organize community support for ballot initiatives requiring treatment instead of incarceration for non-violent drug offenders. She is the central figure nationally seeking to engage people of color and their leaders to address the negative impact that the war on drugs is having on their communities.

Following a series of conferences that she organized around the United States, Ms. Small founded Break the Chains in May of 2004. Break the Chains is a national organization based in New York City that seeks to build a movement in support of drug policy reform among communities of color in the United States. Its goal is to replace failed drug polices with alternatives based on science, compassion and human rights.

Ms. Small sees her work as a continuation of Dr. King’s legacy and that of other civil and human rights leaders who committed their lives to the cause of equality and freedom. Ms. Small believes that, “If Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. were alive today he would see the drug war and the resulting over-incarceration of people of color as a major civil rights and human rights issue that must be addressed if we are to have a true and healthy democracy.”

The KCBA Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Luncheon will be held on Friday, January 14, 2005 at the Plymouth Congregational Church. See the back page of this Bar Bulletin for reservation information.