A Change in Direction for the Texas Civil Rights Project
This spring, the board of trustees for the Texas Civil Rights Project, a community lawyering organization known for taking cases others wouldn't, voted to close the nonprofit's satellite office in El Paso, which had served that community for more than a decade. The group told the El Paso Times that it had only been able to retain one attorney in the office over the last year, and so the move made fiscal sense moving forward. But, a representative insisted, the move would not mean any service reductions in the El Paso area.
That didn't stop invested parties in the West Texas city from worrying. County Judge Ruben John Vogt, who wasn't aware of the decision until the newspaper called him for comment, told the Times, "It's always difficult to see an organization that has done such good work leave a community, especially a community where there is always need." One of the office's former directors, attorney Briana Stone, had stronger words in a Facebook post. She said news of the closure "knocked the wind out of me and I actually had to pull my car over to the side of the road."
Stone, who worked for the organization from 2006 until 2011, also posted a photo on Facebook, of a mural painted at the shuttered office. It features famous civil rights leaders, including Martin Luther King Jr., Cesar Chavez, and Texas voting rights advocate Lawrence Nixon, and stands as a symbol of the "revolutionary spirit" already lighting up the region when the TCRP set up shop. "We were welcomed and immediately warmed by its flame, but we didn't light the fire," wrote Stone. "If anything, our work was bolstered by the committed and courageous advocates in the El Paso region." She predicted that TCRP will suffer more for having cut itself off from this direct line to the community.
"In El Paso, the fight for racial, social, and economic justice will continue with or without" TCRP.
Read more: https://www.austinchronicle.com/news/2018-08-03/a-change-in-direction-for-the-texas-civil-rights-project/