About the Author

Susie Ruth Powell is a retired legal aid attorney and assistant professor at North Carolina Central University School of Law. She received her Juris Doctor from Case Western Reserve University in 1973 in the first wave of women law students and was one of two black women to graduate in that class.  Some career highlights include suing the United States on behalf of poor people living in substandard federal housing in the case Garden Valley Tenants Association v. James Lynn and The United States of America, practicing poverty law in North Carolina by grappling with issues of housing, domestic violence, food stamps, child care and tort defenses, and teaching contracts, trial practice and legal writing at North Carolina Central University School of Law and teaching at the legal clinic at NCCU.  Powell has an Honorary Doctor of Humane Letters from Bennett College for Women, an Honorary Doctor of Laws from North Carolina Central University, and served as a writer on the Emmy Award-winning documentary, “The Loving Story,” which earned Historians' top prize, among a number of prizes.  She also worked on the story development for “The Rape of Recy Taylor,” her second documentary film.