POWELL, Wyo. — The Heart Mountain Wyoming Foundation congratulates its board chair, Shirley Ann Higuchi, on her election as the first Asian American president-elect of the Bar Association of the District of Columbia (BADC).
The 152-year-old BADC aims to promote civility, collegiality, and justice in the Washington, D.C. legal community. Its members include lawyers from some of the most prominent law firms in the nation’s capital, as well as government officials, judges, and influential members of the court system.
Higuchi is one of a select group of lawyers who have been elected president of two of Washington’s bar associations — the DC Bar and BADC. In 2003 and 2004, Higuchi was president of the DC Bar, the nation’s third-largest mandatory membership bar association.
Members of both organizations have a long history with Heart Mountain. Last year, a delegation of lawyers and judges from Washington traveled to Heart Mountain for a four-day seminar on the history of Japanese American incarceration. During that trip, they met with leaders of the Heart Mountain Wyoming Foundation and leaders of the local legal community, such as former Sen. Alan Simpson.
“It’s hard to believe that an association of lawyers established in 1872 that once excluded women and people of color now has an Asian American president-elect,” Higuchi said. “I’m proud to serve beside Rawle Andrews Jr., who led a delegation of lawyers and judges last summer to our historic site.”
“I am proud to be joined at the helm by Shirley Ann Higuchi, Esq., president-elect of the BADC,” said Andrews, BADC’s president. “The Andrews-Higuchi Administration’s goal is for every attorney, judge, and law student (young, tenured, and retired) in the District of Columbia to find such a home at the BADC.”
The Heart Mountain Wyoming Foundation, a Smithsonian affiliate, preserves the site where some 14,000 Japanese Americans were unjustly incarcerated in Wyoming from 1942 through 1945. Their stories are told within the foundation’s museum, Heart Mountain Interpretive Center, located between Cody and Powell. For more information, call the center at (307) 754-8000, email info@ heartmountain.org or visit www.heartmountain.org.
Note: The 2024 Heart Mountain Pilgrimage will take place on July 25-27.