Jackson Free Press

When Martha Bergmark left a turbulent Mississippi in the 1960s, she had no plans to return. But at the top of a successful law career in Washington, D.C., she decided to return to her home state and improve the lives of others.

Bergmark, 60, founded the Mississippi Center for Justice in 2003 to provide legal aid for underserved communities and citizens. The nonprofit public-interest law firm has been instrumental in reforming the state's juvenile-justice system and restoring Medicaid benefits to 50,000 Mississippians. After Hurricane Katrina destroyed the Gulf Coast in 2005, MJC opened an office in Biloxi to address the legal needs of survivors by obtaining affordable housing for displaced residents and ensuring relief money was distributed properly.

The center also promotes advocacy campaigns in education, affordable housing, health care, childcare, hurricane recovery, community economic development and foreclosure prevention.

On March 3, the American Bar Association named Bergmark the recipient of the John Minor Wisdom Public Service and Professionalism Award for her advocacy work and commitment to legal justice. The award is named after Judge John Minor Wisdom who ordered decisions and implemented desegregation in the wake of the Supreme Court's historic ruling in Brown v. Board of Education.

Bergmark, a Jackson native, received her law degree from at the University of Michigan. She started her career as a civil rights lawyer in Hattiesburg where she was the executive director of Southeast Mississippi Legal Services. In the 1990s Bergmark was the president and executive vice president of the Legal Services Corporation in Washington, D.C., an organization that administers federal funding for legal aid programs. She also worked as senior vice president for programs at that National Legal Aid and Defender Association.