Since 2001 the College of Law has held a gala to raise money for the Julian Blackshear Scholarship, which helps to recruit and retain outstanding African American students. The scholarship is named for the third African American to earn the JD (1970) from the college, Julian W. Blackshear. He practiced law in Nashville for 36 years, finishing his career as a partner with Smith, Hirsch, Blackshear & Harris, PLC practicing exclusively in general civil law.
Blackshear graduated from Morehouse College in Atlanta. During his sophomore year, he was one of many student leaders who organized the first Atlanta sit-in demonstrations protesting Jim Crow laws, an action which led to his being confined briefly in the Fulton County Jail. He enrolled at the UT College of Law in 1963, but his attendance was interrupted in 1965 when he served in Taiwan and Vietnam with the US Air Force. He returned to the UT College of Law in 1969 and graduated in 1970.
After retiring from the practice of law, Blackshear became a full-time professor of political science at Tennessee State University. He has written a book of poetry and is an accomplished trumpeter.