Joseph Martin Neal Jr. Scholarship

To honor Joseph Martin Neal Jr. and commemorate his life and service, a scholarship is being established in his honor for deserving students at the Southern University Law Center. This scholarship will be awarded to law students who share and uphold the values that Joseph exhibited throughout his life and work.

Through this memorial scholarship, we will honor Joseph and remember his spirit of leadership, courage, and passion. Your generosity in honoring Joseph will make a tremendous lasting difference in the lives of SULC students, and the communities they will serve.

Joseph Martin Neal, Jr. was born during the Great Depression, a son of a sharecropper in Mounds, Louisiana. From humble beginnings in Louisiana to becoming the First Black State Senator of Nevada, Neal earned his reputation as the “Westside Slugger “due to his relentless will to fight for justice. He graduated from Southern University A & M College and pursued his innate quest for justice through postgraduate work at Southern University Law Center.

Joseph was passionate about the pursuit of higher learning, and he let everyone know how much he valued education, having integrity, and showing courage. He always maintained a spirit of fearlessness, humility, and support of others. He often told his children “Never think so high of yourself that you no longer encourage someone else to do the same.”

A man amongst men, after retiring from the Senate he received numerous prestigious awards and taught Constitutional Democracy as an Adjunct Professor at the Community College of Southern Nevada. Neal Earnestly believed that, “If you learn to read, you can do anything in life” hence, it is only befitting that a Las Vegas elementary school bears his name.

**Donations may also be mailed to the Southern University Law Center at: Post Office Box 9294 Baton Rouge, LA 70813.