NCCU Law School Alumnus Patrick Hannah Heads the Corporate Roundtable for the National Caucus of State Legislators and Raleigh Durham Airport Authority

NCCU School of Law Alumnus Patrick Hannah Heads the Corporate Roundtable for the National Black Caucus of State Legislators and Raleigh Durham Airport Authority

Patrick Hannah ’00 is currently serving as the Chairman of the Corporate Roundtable for the National Black Caucus of State Legislators, a position previously held by Durham’s own Benjamin Ruffin. He represents over 105 companies/ organizations for 700 legislators representing 70 million constituents across the country. He has also recently been elected the Chairman of the Raleigh Durham Airport (RDU) Authority. The Airport Authority is a local government entity responsible for the development, operation and maintenance of RDU Airport.

Nationally, Hannah served in the Clinton White House and the Office of Legal Counsel during the impeachment trial. Patrick has worked professionally on local, statewide and national campaigns for former Durham mayor Bill Bell, former White House Chief of Staff Erskine Bowles and Senator John Edwards, respectively.

Hannah has spent the last two decades serving the local and state community before taking on the roles with the Corporate Roundtable and Airport Authority. Locally, he served our community fighting for civil rights as Vice President of the Durham NAACP. He has been an advocate for strong public education and a parent of a teenager with special needs and for early childhood education as a Member of the Board of Directors for the Durham’s Partnership for Children.

He also worked for high-quality public transit as Chairman of the Durham Area Transit Authority. In addition, he serves on the Trust Bank Advisory Board and is the Chairman of the Arkansas Earthquake Authority in his birth state of Arkansas.

His most recent professional experience includes the role of senior counsel for a Fortune 70 Company. He also has experience in higher education, having served here at his alma mater as special assistant to the chancellor, successfully passing their 20-year master plan.

Mr. Hannah earned his B.A. in history from Morehouse College.

Meet Preston Mitchum ’11

Preston Mitchum chose to study law to challenge the notion that all laws are morally right simply because they’re “the law.” Mitchum states, “If we just rested on the laurels of ‘well, that’s the law,’ then nothing would change because no one would force it to change.” For Mitchum, the recognition that the law is not always moral and often is rooted in systems of oppression is directly tied to his advocacy work.

Mitchum was named 2021 Rockwood Reproductive Health, Rights, & Justice Fellow. This fellowship brings together 24 leaders across the nation, an exciting cross-section of the movement that spans different strategies, demographics, and regions. It is designed to give leaders an opportunity to delve deeper into their leadership development and build stronger partnerships for a greater impact on the reproductive health, rights and justice movement.

Mitchum is a Black queer attorney, advocate, and activist with a focus on the power of Black people, young people and queer, trans, and non-binary people. With nearly a decade of legal and policy experience, he develops reproductive health, rights, and justice policies and strategies as the policy director with URGE: Unite for Reproductive & Gender Equity, a young people’s Reproductive Justice organization based in Washington, D.C. with staff in six states: Ohio, Kansas, Alabama, Georgia, Texas, and California. Preston is an adjunct professor of law at Georgetown University Law Center and teaches LGBTQ Health Law & Policy. Mitchum serves as co-chair of the board of directors of Collective Action for Safe Spaces, is the co-chair of the social justice committee for the National Bar Association Young Lawyers Division, and was the first openly LGBTQ chair of the Washington Bar Association Young Lawyers Division.

Mitchum is also an accomplished author publishing both scholarly work and social commentary for many outlets and law review journals including The Atlantic, MTV News, Think Progress, Huffington Post, William & Mary Journal of Woman and the law, North Carolina Central University School of Law’s Biotechnology & Pharmaceutical Law Review, and others. In 2020, Mitchum was named one of the 40 Best LGBTQ+ Lawyers Under 40 by the National LGBT Bar Association.

He holds a LL.M in law and government from American University College of Law, a J.D, cum laude, from North Carolina Central University School of Law, and a Bachelor of Arts in Political Science, cum laude, from Kent State University.