Greetings, NBPA Family!

Welcome to a new year of NBPA! I would like to thank each of you for entrusting me to serve as your NBPA President for the 2023-2025 term. We have an amazing two years ahead of us! I want to personally thank our Immediate Past President, Allison Green and our previous board for all of their hard work. President Green ensured that we had a smooth transition out of the pandemic back to our in-person conferences. Both our Houston and Chicago conferences are testaments to that transition. SO, THANK YOU!

My journey to National President started in 2017 when I was voluntold by now Judge Sonja N. Brown to assist in revitalizing our local Greater Atlanta Black Prosecutors Chapter of NBPA. Now as you can imagine, when you are voluntold to do something by your mentor, you don’t say no, you just do. You go forth and take up the charge! I am so glad that I did. As President of my local chapter, I attended my first NBPA conference in Denver, Colorado, in 2018. Even though I had attended other conferences prior to my role as local chapter President, it was at that NBPA conference that I truly felt at home. It was more than a great learning experience; I met a new family!  My family, without question, understood what it meant to be a black prosecutor, the importance of serving as a prosecutor, and the significance of serving as a prosecutor.  After attending the conference, I was inspired and knew that I wanted to continue serving our organization. From 2019-2021, I served as Southeast Regional Director and 2021-2023, I served as Vice President of Programs.

Our organization is the premier organization that gathers, trains, grows, supports, and mentors law students and attorneys interested in embarking on this remarkable and profound career as a prosecutor. It is my esteemed honor and pleasure to work alongside this amazing board to make sure we are doing what we were founded to do and growing the next generation of prosecutors.

As President, my focus for this term is to focus on our Strategic Plan that was implemented in 2021 under the leadership of Past President, Erika Gilliam Booker. Our Strategic Plan has five (5) goals: Prioritizing Community Engagement and Service; Targeting Social Action and Programming; Strengthening Membership Engagement; Mentorship; and Professional Development and Education. Within each of these goals, we will focus on several initiatives to ensure our organization’s sustainability for the future. In consideration of our strategic plan, I have determined that the appropriate theme for 2023-2025 is A Strategic NBPA: Servicing, Supporting, and Strengthening Black Prosecutors in America and Beyond. Aligning with this theme, we will continue our service to the community; support our membership by providing quality programming throughout the year and strengthen the foundation of our organization.

Now, there is much work to be done and the board cannot do it alone. One of my favorite verses is Matthew 9:37, “The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few.” We will need every member to labor in our NBPA harvest so that we can continue to do the great work of our organization both locally and nationally. Therefore, please consider serving on the local level, serving as a state liaison, or serving on one of our national committees.

Again, thank you for entrusting me with the leadership of our organization! I look forward to working with you for the good of our organization. I cannot wait to see many of you at the family reunion, our 41^st National Conference, August 3-10, 2024, in Boston, MA.

Yours in Service,

Simone N. Hylton

National President 2023-2025