Angela A. Allen-Bell

Associate Professor
B.K. Agnihotri Endowed Professor

Angela A. Allen-Bell is a respected local, national and international legal scholar and expert on the interplay between race and justice. It was her research that catapulted the movement to end the use of non-unanimous juries in Louisiana. And she is one of the founding members of the advocacy team that led this effort to reform Louisiana’s jury system through the adoption of legislation requiring unanimous juries in criminal trials in Louisiana state courts. She recently released a three-book series that begins with “Under Indictment: Race, Juries and Justice in Louisiana.”

She holds the B. K. Agnihotri Endowed Professorship and she serves as director of the law center’s Louis A. Berry Institute for Civil Rights, Human Rights and Social Justice. Professor Bell has the distinction of having worked on several other historic advocacy campaigns, such as the 50th Commemoration of Students United and the 1972 Southern University student movement, the Angola 3 case, Soledad Brother John Clutchette’s case, Vincent Simmons’ case and the case of Robert Holbrook. She has also spent years engaging in narrative change work on behalf of the Black Panther Party and has become a formidable authority on the group’s history both in and outside of the United States.

Professor Bell is an activist scholar who has made many media appearances and participated in many local, national and international collaborations to discuss her scholarship and advocacy work, including La Presse (France), Le Nouvel Observateur (France), MSNBC (News Nation with Tamron Hall), CBS News, NBC Nightly News, National Public Radio (All Things Considered) and Louisiana Public Broadcasting. When Louisiana Governor John Bel Edwards issued a posthumous pardon to Homer Plessy, Professor Bell was selected to speak as the legal historian for the occasion. Prof. Bell has even been published in or quoted in a range of print media sources, such as the Washington Post, Courthouse News Service, Capital B News, Law 360, Russia Today TV, the New Yorker, the Huffington Post and the Advocate.

Professor Bell is a member of two highly selective, invitation-only societies: the National Black Lawyers-Top 100 and the Fellows of the American Bar Foundation, whose membership is limited to one percent of lawyers licensed to practice in each jurisdiction. She has been named: a “2026 Baton Rouge Community Leader” by the Baton Rouge Alumnae Chapter of Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, Inc.; a “Living Legend Award” Recipient; one of CIO Views Magazine’s “Top 10 Most Influential Leaders Making an Impact in Legal Industry”; a “Woman of Distinction” by the Girl Scouts Louisiana East; the Drum Newspaper’s “People for 2021” Honoree; a “Louisiana Leading Lady”; Recipient of the National Civil Rights Conference “Civil Rights and Social Justice Award”; and, following a national search, she was selected as a member of the first cohort of the Culture of Health Leadership Institute for Racial Healing.