{{short description|American attorney and civil rights advocate}} thumb|Bergmark receiving 2011 Obama White House Champions of Change award '''Martha Jane Bergmark''' is an attorney, civil rights advocate, and writer from Mississippi.<ref name=":6">{{Cite web|url=https://www.huffingtonpost.com/author/martha-bergmark|title=Martha Bergmark {{!}} HuffPost|website=www.huffingtonpost.com|language=en|access-date=2018-01-06}}</ref><ref name=":3">{{Cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=duxXsh9SY7sC&q=Martha+Bergmark&pg=PA45|title=Mississippi Mind: A Personal Cultural History of an American State|last=Yates|first=Gayle Graham|date=1990|publisher=Univ. of Tennessee Press|isbn=9780870496431|pages=45|language=en}}</ref> Bergmark is best known for her work promoting civil justice through civil legal aid organizations at the local, state, and national level.<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://www.legalnews.com/Jackson/1137387|title=U-M law school graduate earns White House award > Jackson County Legal News|website=legalnews.com|access-date=2018-01-07}}</ref> Currently, Bergmark serves as the executive director of Voices for Civil Justice.<ref name=":7" /> In 1978, she co-founded the Southeast Mississippi Legal Services to provide federally funded legal aid services in a nine county area.<ref name=":0">{{Cite web|url=https://www.law.umich.edu/newsandinfo/features/Pages/bergmark.aspx|title=Martha Bergmark honored as Champion of Change|website=www.law.umich.edu|language=en-US|access-date=2018-01-06}}</ref><ref name=":4" />

In the late 1980s, she served as the civil division director and then as senior vice president for programs of the Washington DC–based National Legal Aid and Defender Association. She held the position of president of the Legal Services Corporation which advocates for and administers federal funding for legal aid programs throughout the United States.<ref name=":4" /> In 2003, she moved back to Mississippi and co-found the Mississippi Center for Justice.<ref name=":0" /> Bergmark was recognized as a "Champion of Change" by United States President Obama's White House in 2011 for her work to advance racial and economic justice.<ref name=":0" /><ref name=":1">{{Cite web|url=https://obamawhitehouse.archives.gov/champions/leaders-in-closing-the-justice-gap/martha-bergmark|title=Martha Bergmark|website=The White House|language=en|access-date=2018-01-06}}</ref>

== Early life, education, and family == Martha Jane Bergmark is the daughter of Robert Bergmark, a Methodist minister, and Carol (Comstock) Bergmark, a choir director.<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://www.legacy.com/obituaries/clarionledger/obituary.aspx?n=carol-bergmark&pid=113244759|title=Carol Bergmark's Obituary on Clarion Ledger|website=Clarion Ledger|access-date=2018-01-06}}</ref> In 1953, her family moved to Jackson, Mississippi for her father to become a professor of philosophy at Millsaps College. Bergmark grew up in a traditional middle class community in Jackson where racial segregation between blacks and white residents was common and enforced through Jim Crow era laws.<ref name=":3" /> By the time she was in high school, her parents and she were involved at the local level with the civil rights movement and new federal social service programs to help promote economic advances for African Americans. During the summers, she traveled to Tougaloo, Mississippi to work with under privileged African American children—the first summer as an unpaid volunteer aide for the Head Start Program, and the next two summers as a paid teacher's aide in the initial years of the Upward Bound program.<ref name=":3" /> The high school that she attended, Murrah High School, was racially integrated while she was student. Bergmark's decision to volunteer as an orientation counselor for incoming black students revealed for the first time to her friends and teachers her affinity to African Americans.<ref name=":4" /> Her experience during her high school years motivated her towards her career of working to advance racial and economic justice.<ref name=":3" /><ref>{{Cite web|url=https://repository.library.georgetown.edu/static/flexpaper/template.html?path=/bitstream/handle/10822/710425/nejl009_bergmark.pdf?sequence=1&isAllowed=y|title=Oral history interview with Martha Bergmark|last=McIver|first=Harrison|date=July 28, 1992|website=repository.library.georgetown.edu|publisher=National Equal Justice Library Oral History Project.|location=Oral history collection, NEJL, Georgetown Law Library|type=Oral history interview|access-date=2018-01-13}}</ref> Bergmark excelled academically in high school and was named a U.S. Presidential Schola<nowiki/>r in 1966 for the State of Mississippi.<ref>{{Cite news|url=https://issuu.com/faircountmedia/docs/psp50|title=50 Years of Presidential Scholars: In Pursuit of Excellence|access-date=2018-01-07|publisher=United States Presidential Scholars Alumni Association|others=Profile: Martha Bergmark by Craig Collins|year=2014|page=102|language=en|via=issuu}}</ref>

Bergmark earned a degree from Oberlin College.<ref name=":1" /><ref name=":2">{{Cite web|url=http://www.mscenterforjustice.org/about-center/staff|title=Staff {{!}} Mississippi Center for Justice|website=mscenterforjustice.org|access-date=2018-01-06}}</ref> She obtained a Juris Doctor degree from University of Michigan Law School in 1973.<ref name=":0" /><ref name=":1" /> While in law school Bergmark participated in the first law school clinic at the University of Michigan.<ref name=":0" /> As a law student, Bergmark worked as a Reginald Heber Smith Fellow at North Mississippi Rural Legal Services, Mississippi's first civil legal aid organization, and the Community Legal Services.<ref name=":4" />

Bergmark met Elliott Andalman, her future husband, while in law school. They have two sons, Aaron Samuel Andalman and David Andalman.<ref name=":4" /><ref>{{Cite news|url=https://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/04/fashion/weddings/04Levenberg.html|title=Wrenn Levenberg and Aaron Andalman|last=Schwartz|first=Paula|date=2010-07-02|work=The New York Times|access-date=2018-01-07|language=en-US|issn=0362-4331}}</ref> Her son, David Andalman, wrote and co-directed ''American Milkshake'', which was selected for the Sundance Film Festival in 2013. The low budget independent comedy about race, class and basketball in 1990s was produced out of Bergmark's family house on Montgomery Avenue in Takoma Park, Maryland.<ref>{{Cite news|url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/movie-made-in-takoma-park-gives-residents-a-taste-of-stardom/2013/08/30/04c53e2c-10e5-11e3-b4cb-fd7ce041d814_story.html|title=Movie 'American Milkshake,' made in Takoma Park, gives residents a taste of stardom|last=Hendrix|first=Steve|date=2013-09-03|newspaper=Washington Post|access-date=2018-01-06|language=en-US|issn=0190-8286}}</ref>

== Career == === Early years in Mississippi === In 1973, after Bergmark graduated from law school, she returned to Michigan to established a civil rights and poverty law practice.<ref name=":0" /><ref name=":5" /><ref name=":4" /> With her husband and two other graduates from the University of Michigan Law School, Michael Adelman and Allison Steiner, Bergmark established a "legal collective" in Hattiesburg, Mississippi that offered both civil and criminal legal service.<ref name=":0" /><ref name=":5">{{Cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=t_gaBwAAQBAJ&q=Martha+Bergmark&pg=PT294|title=Mississippi Entrepreneurs|last=Dement|first=Polly|date=2014-06-17|publisher=Univ. Press of Mississippi|isbn=9781626741232|language=en}}</ref><ref name=":4">{{Cite web|url=https://voicesforciviljustice.org/about/martha-bergmark-interview/|title=Four Decades in Civil Legal Aid – an Interview with Martha Bergmark – Voices for Civil Justice|website=voicesforciviljustice.org|language=en-US|access-date=2018-01-06}}</ref> In 1978, when federal funds were enlarged by United States President Jimmy Carter's administration, she left the law practice to found the Southeast Mississippi Legal Services in a nine county area.<ref name=":0" /><ref name=":4" /> Bergmark was the organizations founding executive director.<ref name=":4" />

=== Early years in Washington, DC === In 1987, Bergmark relocated to Washington DC where she was civil division director and then as senior vice president for programs of the National Legal Aid and Defender Association. Bergmark was the director of Project for the Future of Equal Justice.<ref name=":0" /> Later, she was the executive vice president and president of the Legal Services Corporation which advocates for and administers federal funding for legal aid programs throughout the United States.<ref name=":4" />

=== Mississippi Center for Justice === In 2003, Bergmark moved back to Mississippi and co-found the Mississippi Center for Justice with funding granted as a Stern Family Fund's Public Interest Pioneer.<ref name=":0" /><ref name=":2" /> She was the founding president/CEO of the Center until 2013.<ref name=":1" />

=== Voices for Civil Justice === In 2013, the US Public Welfare Foundation established Voices for Civil Justice to better communicate to the public the positive role that civil legal plays in improving the social, economic, and health status of impoverished and marginalized people.<ref name=":7">{{Cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=6UGWDQAAQBAJ&q=%22Voices+for+Civil+Justice%22&pg=PA234|title=Access to Justice and Legal Aid: Comparative Perspectives on Unmet Legal Need|last1=Flynn|first1=Asher|last2=Hodgson|first2=Jacqueline|date=2017-01-26|publisher=Bloomsbury Publishing|isbn=9781509900862|pages=234|language=en}}</ref> Bergmark was the founding executive director of Voices for Civil Justice<ref name=":6" /><ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.americanbar.org/groups/legal_services/publications/dialogue/volume/17/summer-2014/raising-our-voices-for-civil-justice.html|title=Raising our Voices for Civil Justice {{!}} Division for Legal Services {{!}} Standing Committee / Pro Bono and Public Service|website=www.americanbar.org|access-date=2018-01-13}}</ref> before her retirement in August 2021.<ref>{{Cite web |title=History |url=https://voicesforciviljustice.org/about/history/ |access-date=2024-11-18 |website=Voices for Civil Justice |language=en-US}}</ref>

== Honors == Bergmark is a former Reginald Heber Smith Fellow and the 1990 recipient of the Kutak-Dodds Prize for her civil rights and legal aid work.<ref name=":2" /> She was the 2010 recipient of the American Bar Association Section of Litigation's John Minor Wisdom Public Service and Professionalism Award.<ref name=":1" /> Bergmark was recognized as a "Champion of Change" by United States President Obama's White House in 2011 for her work to advance racial and economic justice.<ref name=":0" /><ref name=":1" /> Bergmark was awarded an honorary doctorate of public service from Millsaps College<ref name=":1" /> and an honorary doctorate from Oberlin College in 2012.<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://www2.oberlin.edu/alummag/summer2012/ats.html|title=Around Tappan Square / Oberlin Alumni Magazine / Summer 2012|website=www2.oberlin.edu|access-date=2018-01-13}}</ref> Bergmark is a 2018 Presidential Scholars Roosevelt “Rosey” Thompson awardee.<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://www.presidentialscholars.org/events/|title=Events|website=Presidential Scholars Foundation|language=en-US|access-date=2018-07-10}}</ref>

== References == {{Reflist|33em}}

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{{DEFAULTSORT:Bergmark, Martha}} Category:Living people Category:Oberlin College alumni Category:20th-century American women writers Category:21st-century American women writers Category:Civil rights activists from Mississippi Category:American women civil rights activists Category:Year of birth missing (living people) Category:University of Michigan Law School alumni