Born Nov. 29, 1947, Barbara Brown Simmons was the first Black woman to graduate from the University of New Mexico School of Law and the first Black woman to become a member of the New Mexico State Bar.
An advocate for equal rights, Brown Simmons fought tirelessly through activism and protests to shape UNM during the Civil Rights era in the 1960s before her death in 2022.
Brown Simmons lived in Amarillo, Texas as a child, where she said she learned about Black history in school and became proud of her culture during the time of segregation.
“Living in a segregated community, I was so proud of my parents, especially my father.” Simmons said in an interview for the UNM Black Alumni Oral History Project in 2016. “My father was my hero because I never saw him be submissive; he was always a proud Black man.”
Simmons’ father was an entrepreneur who owned a nightclub and a hotel, Simmons said in the interview.
After graduating from Valley High School in 1965, Brown Simmons arrived on the UNM campus with a plan to become a teacher. However, she made the switch to political science and earned her bachelor’s degree in 1969.
A 1966 visit to UNM from the Freedom Riders — a group of student activists who traveled to protest segregation — inspired Brown Simmons and her peers to start the Black Student Union on campus. Their mission was to eliminate racism at UNM, establish racial equality and for Black students to be included at all levels of the University experience, she said in the 2016 interview.
As an undergraduate, Brown Simmons was among a group of people who were asked to write the proposal for a Black studies program at UNM, which was titled “To Break the Chains.” The program was approved by the Board of Regents and classes began in 1970.
Fifty-one years after its inception, the Black studies program was renamed to the Department of Africana Studies in 2022, according to KUNM.
While at UNM, Brown Simmons co-founded the UNM Black Alumni Chapter, according to the Journal of Blacks in Higher Education.
Upon receiving her Juris Doctorate from UNM in 1974, Brown Simmons became the first Black woman to graduate from the law school. She then went on to become the first Black woman to be admitted to the New Mexico State Bar and spent the next 25 years as a criminal defense lawyer, according to UNM Newsroom.
“When they called my name, one of the greatest honors of all was everyone in my class stood up and gave me a standing ovation. I was so moved by that, as I didn’t see it coming,” Brown Simmons said in the 2016 interview, recalling the UNM law school’s 1974 commencement.
Get content from The Daily Lobo delivered to your inbox
Brown Simmons was crucial to the creation of the UNM Black Alumni Oral History Project, which conducted 10 interviews with members of the UNM Black Alumni Chapter, including Brown Simmons herself.
“Mrs. Brown Simmons’ legacy is perpetual. She achieved innumerable firsts, all while building organizations to support those who would come after her and memorializing the history of Black New Mexicans for future generations,” wrote Aja N. Brooks, UNM law school alum and president of the New Mexico State Bar, in a UNM Newsroom article.
In her honor, the UNM School of Law established the Barbara Brown Simmons Endowed Scholarship in Law.
Maria Fernandez is a beat reporter and photographer for the Daily Lobo. She can be reached at news@dailylobo.com or on X @dailylobo
