The Legal Defense Fund (LDF) is America’s premier legal organization fighting for racial justice. Using the power of law, narrative, research, and people, we defend and advance the full dignity and citizenship of Black people in America. The Thurgood Marshall Institute is a multidisciplinary center within LDF that complements the organization’s traditional litigation, strengthening it through innovative research and publications, targeted advocacy, and public education campaigns.
Housed within the Thurgood Marshall Institute, the Archives and Records Department serves three major functions: building and managing an archival repository of LDF’s historic records, providing library services including research support, and coordinating the process by which records become part of the LDF Archives. LDF is undertaking a major effort to organize, preserve, digitize, and create a website featuring a substantial portion of our 8,000 boxes of rich historical case files and institutional records.
LDF Archives Internship:
LDF is seeking a current or recent graduate student in Library and Information Studies for a Summer 2025 Archives Internship. Working closely with LDF archivists, the Archives Intern will primarily assist with surveying, arranging, and describing physical and digital records related to the ongoing fight for racial justice. The intern may also assist with tasks such as research for the LDF Oral History Project, curating content for the Archives website, ingesting files into Preservica, assisting with developing or updating archives policies and procedures, general research and writing about LDF’s history, and other projects. This internship will be a great fit for a collaborative and detail-oriented student interested in legal history and archival program development at a dynamic nonprofit organization.
The deadline for submissions is June 13, 2025.
Work schedule: Interns are required to be onsite on Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Fridays.
Qualifications:
Please note that LDF requires all employees to be fully vaccinated against COVID-19 as a condition of employment. Accordingly, successful candidates must be fully vaccinated against COVID-19 and submit proof of vaccination prior to the commencement of employment unless they qualify for a reasonable accommodation for bona fide medical or religious reasons.
The NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, Inc. is proud to be an Equal Opportunity Employer. We are committed to providing equal employment opportunities to you without regard to race, creed, color, religion, national origin, sex, sexual orientation, pregnancy, marital status, age, veteran status, medical condition or disability, genetic information, gender identity, or any other protected status under federal, state, or local law.
LDF is the nation’s first and foremost civil and human rights law organization. Since its founding under the leadership of Thurgood Marshall in 1940, LDF has been committed to transforming this nation’s promise of racial equity and justice into reality for all Americans. Through litigation, advocacy, and public education, LDF seeks structural changes to expand democracy, eliminate disparities, and achieve racial justice in a society that fulfills the promise of equality for all Americans.
Working in the areas of criminal justice, economic justice, education, and political participation, we seek to diminish the role of race in the criminal justice system; increase fairness and participation in all aspects of economic life; increase equity in education; and achieve full civic engagement and participation in the democratic process for all Americans.
We use litigation, advocacy, educational outreach, monitoring of federal and state government activity, coalition building, and policy research to achieve our goals. Additionally, through our scholarship, fellowship, and internship programs, we help students attend and graduate from many of the nation’s best institutions of higher education.
"The NAACP Legal Defense & Educational Fund is simply the best civil rights law firm in American history." - President Obama
