
Marilyn Holifield
Attorney
Marilyn Holifield, Esq. obtained a Juris Doctorate from Harvard Law School, Bachelor of Arts in economics and Concentration in Black Studies from Swarthmore College, and Honorary Doctorate of Humane Letters from Barry University. She is a senior partner in Holland & Knight LLP, an international law firm that traces its Florida history to the 1890s. She joined Holland & Knight in 1981 and was named a partner in the firm in 1986 – becoming the first black woman partner of a major law firm in Florida. A native of Tallahassee Florida, Ms. Holifield was one of three Black students who desegregated Tallahassee’s Leon High, which had been racially segregated for 100 years. Ms. Holifield has served on the Executive Committees of the Harvard Board of Overseers, Swarthmore College Board of Managers, Board of Trustees of the University of Miami, and Harvard Alumni Association. She has received numerous awards for civic and professional contributions.
She is a co-founder and board chair of the Miami Museum of Contemporary Art of the African Diaspora, Miami MoCAAD. In 2021, the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation named her a Knight Arts Champion. Holifield’s publications include: Seven Sisters and a Brother: Friendship, Resistance and Untold Truths Behind Black Student Activism in the 1960s (collective memoir with seven co-authors) (2019); Museum of Contemporary Art of the African Diaspora: Global Reach Based in Miami (MoCAAD), International Review of African American Art, Marilyn Holifield and Alejandro de la Fuente (2017).