When Ebony Howard describes her work at the Wallace Center, she often returns to one word: stewardship. “My role is really to be a steward of their legacy,” she says of the descendants of the people who were enslaved on the Wallace property. “We’re here to preserve and protect their lineage and their stories, and to figure out ways to share their story and their legacy with the public at large.” 

Nestled on a six-acre property in Harpersville, Alabama, the Wallace House, open to visitors of the Center, traces its roots to 1832, when Samuel Wallace arrived with thirty-nine enslaved craftsmen who built the house. By 1850, the plantation spanned roughly 5,000 acres and had 95 enslaved people under Wallace’s ownership.  In 2018, the house and the surrounding acreage has long passed to Wallace’s descendants, and in 2019 was deeded to the nonprofit originally known as Klein Arts & Culture, renamed in 2023 to the Wallace Center for Arts and Reconciliation. The renaming reflected the organization’s mission to bring together both Black and white descendants of the land and community. Under Ebony Howard’s leadership, the Center uses this layered history as the foundation for art programs that confront legacy, memory and healing. 

Since joining the Wallace Center in early 2024, Ebony has overseen the expansion of exhibits, partnerships, and community programming. This year’s exhibit, Out of Whole Cloth: Marking History and Making Home, 1865–1915, invited visitors to imagine the lives of three newly emancipated Black families who lived on the Wallace lands in the decades following the Civil War. Through artifacts, photographs, and storytelling during tours of the grounds, the exhibit encourages visitors to ask how their new freedom and the uncertainty that came with it shaped the everyday lives of Black Americans after emancipation.  

Ebony also led a collaboration with Sew Their Names, a quilting collective based in Lowndes County, Alabama, where local women embroider the names of formerly enslaved people onto fabric squares. Together, the organizations created a quilt commemorating Black residents listed on the 1870 census with the surname Wallace—an act of remembrance and artistry that brings the past to the present.  

“The ultimate goal,” Ebony explains, “is to defiantly preserve what happened on this land, but also to uplift the fact that, despite what their ancestors endured, they survived so their descendants can walk this land in a collaborative kinship with the descendants of those who enslaved them to create something beautiful and transformative.”  

From Georgetown Law to a Life of Advocacy  

Ebony’s journey to human rights work began well before she became an attorney. As an undergraduate at Howard University, she helped found a campus chapter of Amnesty International, focusing on human rights violations affecting the Black diaspora and on disparities in the juvenile justice system. Those experiences led her to Georgetown Law and to what would become a defining moment in her career: the Juvenile Justice Clinic, directed by Professor Kristin Henning.  

“Kris Henning is the reason I am the kind of advocate I am,” Ebony says. “The clinic was the hardest, best thing I ever did. It taught me to be a fearless, creative, and defiant advocate.” 

After graduating, Ebony began her legal career at the Southern Poverty Law Center in Montgomery, Alabama, where she spent nearly a decade advancing youth justice, racial equity, and education reform. She later served as a federal public defender and as Deputy Director of the Gault Center (formerly the National Juvenile Defender Center), training attorneys nationwide to represent children. The Gault Center worked closely with the Juvenile Justice Clinic at Georgetown, giving Ebony the opportunity to work closely again with her mentor, Kris Henning. At the Gault Center, Ebony saw the power of art as an educational tool when she used music and other visual mediums to drive home the lessons in the training sessions offered to lawyers.  

For Ebony, the transition from law to leading an arts and humanities organization was not a departure from human rights and the legal field, but a natural next step. Throughout her career, Ebony has drawn inspiration from movements for Black liberation—the Civil Rights Movement, the abolitionist struggle, the anti-apartheid movement in South Africa, and the women’s rights movement—all of which she sees as grounded in a deep belief in human dignity. Ebony sees music and art as the undercurrent of all the movements that inspired her. “There’s something about hearing Sam Cooke sing A Change Is Gonna Come that does more for the spirit than words alone.” For Ebony, art is the fuel of the activist fire that can accomplish what raw words often cannot. Movements need the assistance of music, a tool that touches the soul.  

Ebony views the Wallace Center’s programs as part of a broader human rights mission—using creativity and storytelling to challenge historical oppression and build community understanding.  

Lessons for Aspiring Human Rights Advocates 

Reflecting on her own path, Ebony offers a message for law students and young professionals who may be uncertain about the shape their careers will take. 

“At some point, you’ll reach the end of the plan you made for yourself,” she says. “And then you have to pivot. You have to trust yourself—and whatever higher power you believe in—that you can take that next step, even if it’s uncomfortable.” Ebony credits her ability to pivot throughout her career to her mentors and those who have guided her along the way. To those law students embarking on their careers, Ebony wants to emphasize the importance of community support and joy.  

Even now that she is no longer working in a strictly legal setting, Ebony has found that her legal training continues to serve her in unexpected ways, from planning and financial management to advocacy and negotiation with local stakeholders. But what matters most, she says, is purpose. “You can do human rights work anywhere. The key is to bring that same spirit of justice and empathy into whatever space you’re in.” 

Written by Edie Tepper, edited by Michelle Liu (November 2025)