The Harvard Law Review is one among the most prestigious legal journals in the world, but the 130-year-old publication had never elected a black woman as its president until now.

That honor has gone to the ImeIme Umana, a 24-year-old daughter of the Nigerian immigrants who has been voted as the president by Law Review’s 92 student editors. Twenty-seven years ago, the Harvard Law School student named Barack Obama was elected as the publication’s first black male president.

Umana is “a brilliant, high-energy young woman with a keen sense of social justice and commitment to service,” said Lawrence D. Bobo, the chairman of Department of African and African-American Studies at the Harvard, where Umana earned honors as an undergraduate for her thesis on the adverse effects of the voter-identification laws on minority voters.

The Law Review post is considered as key to some of the most coveted doors in the legal profession, but Umana has said that she wants to pursue a position as a public defender. The second-year law student was exposed to that work in the last summer during a stint in the public defender’s office in the Bronx, N.Y.

Mrudula Duddempudi.