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ATLANTA — The NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund launched a $40 million scholarship program on Monday to support a new generation of civil rights lawyers, dedicated to pursuing racial justice across the South.

With that whopping gift from a single anonymous donor, the fund plans to put 50 students through law schools around the country. In return, they must commit to eight years of racial justice work in the South, starting with a two-year post-graduate fellowship in a civil rights organization.

“The donor came to us,” said Sherrilyn Ifill, president of the Legal Defense and Educational Fund. “The donor very much wanted to support the development of civil rights lawyers in the South. And we have a little bit of experience with that.”

Indeed, the LDF has been backing civil rights lawyers ever since its founding by Thurgood Marshall in 1940, during an era when Black people rarely had effective legal representation and Black students were turned away from southern universities. It funded the creation of Black and interracial law firms in several southern states in the 1960s and 1970s, and has built a network of lawyers since then.

Reflecting the urgency of these times, the fund has set an application deadline of Feb. 16, giving this fall's incoming first-year law school students less than a month to make their cases for the opportunity.

“While without question we are in a perilous moment in this country, we are also in a moment of tremendous possibility, particularly in the South,” Ifill said. “The elements for change are very much present in the South, and what needs to be strengthened is the capacity of lawyering.”

The LDF chose Martin Luther King Day to announce the Marshall-Motley Scholars Program, named for the Supreme Court justice and for Constance Baker Motley, who was an LDF attorney just a few years out of Columbia University Law School when she wrote the initial complaint that led to the court's Brown v. Board of Education ruling outlawing racial segregation in public schools. She later became the first Black woman federal judge.

“Our country continues to be plagued with racial injustice, and we need Nonviolent Warriors who are prepared and equipped on all fronts to deal with it — especially on the legal front,' the Rev. Bernice King said in a statement supporting the program. “It will allow the LDF to make greater strides on behalf of the Black community for generations to come in the area of racial justice, just as they did during the movement led by my parents.”

The New York-based LDF, which has offices in Washington, also announced Monday that it will open a regional office in Atlanta as part of a renewed effort to fulfill the promise of that 1954 ruling. “We still have the largest desegregation docket outside the Justice Department,” more than 100 cases stemming from Brown v. Board of Education that still haven't been closed, LDF Associate Director Janai Nelson said.

Educational inequity, impediments to voting, racial and economic injustice, the policing crisis and confronting the resurgence of overt white supremacy are just some of the challenges these lawyers will face, said Nelson, adding: “We feel this program is a timely antidote to this particularly violent history that has resurfaced.”

The LDF shared a statement from Cecilia Marshall, the justice's 92-year-old widow, who said the fund is especially meaningful to her “because of Thurgood’s powerful partnership with lawyers across the South who served with him as co-counsel on so many consequential civil rights cases.”

And Joel Motley, the late judge's son, said he's delighted that his mother's legacy will live on through “well-trained and committed litigators” who “will defend the rights of Black people across the South, dismantling the structures of white supremacy.”

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From left, second-graders Zariah Thomas and Rory Englund work in class at Presentation of Mary Catholic School in Maplewood Jan. 21. DAVE HRBACEK THE CATHOLIC SPIRIT

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Sue Lovegreen, principal at Presentation of the Blessed Virgin Mary School in Maplewood, said she could tell by the sound of Brian Ragatz’s voice that something was up. “You could hear the smile in his voice,” she said about that call late last year from the president of the Catholic Schools Center of Excellence.

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“It was like a little kid with a surprise he just couldn’t wait to share,” Lovegreen said. She guessed it was financial help. And she was right — except for the dollar amount. Lovegreen thought it might be word on a grant for which she applied — and could be for $10,000, $20,000, maybe even $25,000.

To Lovegreen’s surprise, Ragatz relayed that an anonymous donor had gifted Presentation school with $500,000.

Less than three miles away, Inna Collier Paske, principal at St. Pascal Regional Catholic School in St. Paul, received a similar call from Ragatz — that the same donor had given her school a $500,000 gift.

“It was amazing,” Collier Paske said. “It definitely felt like a Christmas miracle for us.”

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Flabbergasted by the amount, Lovegreen said, “We don’t get these gifts very often, and how beautiful that (the donor) wants to stay anonymous. I really want to honor that person (by) being a good steward of this gift because they want to touch the minds and hearts and the souls of our students and leave a legacy.”

Both schools are determining specifics on how the money will be used as they take a deliberative approach and plan for the future.

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Presentation plans to set aside half of the gift amount in an endowment to secure the school’s financial longevity, Lovegreen said.

“We’re hoping to encourage other constituents and donors to add to that so that our endowment grows and that, again, gives us sustainability,” she said, with the goal to revitalize and strengthen their school.

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Other uses for the funds will be identified from information collected in surveys from Presentation’s staff and school families, and from a comprehensive assessment, Lovegreen said. Some ideas include bringing arts back to the school and improving the science curriculum for middle school students.

“We will use feedback … to help guide our focused areas, and then we’ll be using our guiding principles to make decisions going forward,” she said.

Kindergarten teacher Shea Bruce works on phonetics with Bilen Fekadu during class at St. Pascal Regional Catholic School Jan. 21. DAVE HRBACEK THE CATHOLIC SPIRIT

St. Pascal formed a team with input from teachers, parents and the school board to maximize the benefit for its entire school community, Collier Paske said.

“It definitely will be a plan that will contribute to the longevity of the school and help our school thrive for the future,” she said.

While categories are not yet defined, Collier Paske said that improving programs for students would be key “because students are the center of everything.”

“We are very grateful for this anonymous donor,” Collier Paske said. “I think that the best gift, the best thank-you to this donor is when we continue to give back … to keep paying it forward … to the families — an excellence that we can provide at the school and keep striving (for) at our school.”

“We couldn’t be more thrilled to support these two wonderful schools with such amazing traditions,” said Ragatz, who took the leadership position at CSCOE last summer after serving as principal of St. Odilia Catholic School in Shoreview. “Although there is still a need for additional financial support, this is a game-changing investment, and I know the schools will use it in game-changing ways to support the students now while building a future for generations to come.”

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