THE FILMMAKER
EVANGELINE M. MITCHELL, ESQ., ED.M.INDEPENDENT DOCUMENTARY FILMMAKER CREATOR | DIRECTOR | EXECUTIVE PRODUCER OF “BECOMING BLACK LAWYERS”
Evangeline M. Mitchell, Esq., Ed.M. is an author/publisher, documentary filmmaker/producer, social entrepreneur, non-profit founder and leader, and lawyer. She has always dreamt of telling stories and sitting behind the camera and declared her interest in being both a filmmaker and a lawyer while still in high school and was most inspired by Henry Hampton’s Eyes on the Prize documentary series. Filled with a deep passion and strong desire to share insight and educate others based on her own and others’ lived experiences, she fiercely believes that video and film serve as perhaps the most powerful tools in which to impact others and inspire social change.
Evangeline is the founder of Relentless Visionary Films LLC, an independent production company. She is also the founder and executive director of National Pre-Law Diversity Initiatives, Inc., a 501 c(3) non-profit educational and charitable organization. Its mission is to help diversify law schools and the legal profession, especially through outreach, particularly to the African
American community, and through comprehensive informational and inspirational empowerment programming. She founded the National Black Pre-Law Conference and Law Fair http://www.blackprelawconference.org in 2005 and the National HBCU Pre-Law Summit and Law Expo http://www.hbcuprelawsummit.orgin 2014. Her new event is The Future Legal Eagles Flight School: National Pre-Law Summit for Black Youth and Parents. She has also founded and produced other diversity outreach events including the National Diversity Pre-Law Conference and Law Fair, the National Hispanic Pre-Law Conference,and the Joint National Black and Hispanic Pre-Law Conference and Law Fair. Through her events and other outreach and information-sharing efforts, she has helped to empower thousands of Black and other historically marginalized people whose path to law school has been made a little easier because of the information received, resources shared, and connections made.
She started her own independent publishing company Hope’s Promise Publishing http://www.hopespromisepublishing.org, the only Black-owned niche publishing company focused on producing books geared to aspiring Black lawyers. She has written and/or edited and published several books including The African American Pre-Law School Advice Guide: Things You Really Need to Know Before Applying to Law School, The African American Law School Survival Guide, Profiles and Essays of Successful African American Law School Applicants, Conquering the Bar Exam, and Lessons from Successful African American Lawyers: Practical Wisdom for Those on the Path to Lawyerhood.
Her most recent service effort includes The Bridge Builders: National Mentorship Program for Aspiring Black Lawyers http://bridgebuildersesq.org/. This volunteer program provides pre-law students with a mentoring circle made up of a lawyer mentor, a law student mentor, and 4-5 peer accountability partners. Evangeline personally mentors numerous future Black law students across the country.
Evangeline is currently pursuing a Distance Certificate in Documentary Arts through the Center for Documentary Studies at Duke University and the Film and TV Industry Essentials Certificate from New York University Tisch School of the Arts. She is a member of Cambridge Community Television and Somerville Media Center. As a producer and filmmaker, Becoming Black Lawyers is the realization of a longtime dream and her first documentary project.
A first-generation college, graduate school, and law school graduate and the product of a single-parent, working-class household, she grew up unexposed and disadvantaged having to navigate the college and law school admission processes alone. Because of the lack of mentorship and assistance she received, she has always felt a very strong social responsibility to share the stories of other African American achievers and encourage and empower those on the path to higher education to fulfill their dreams.
Evangeline is a graduate of HBCU Prairie View A&M University, the University of Iowa College of Law, and the Harvard University Graduate School of Education. She is licensed to practice law in the state of Texas.
She is married, and the mother of twochildren, a son Michael and a daughter Nyla. She hopes that she can leave a legacy of “tangible work” that demonstrates her sincere commitment, particularly to helping future generations of African American lawyers. She says she wants people to be able to see how much she cared and contributed from what she did and not just what she said. She has a lot of say, but believes there are too many talkers and not enough doers. Even at her own events, she is usually in the background working hard and simply doing the work.
