Civil Rights and Wrongs for May 25, 2021

Our guests this Tuesday include Paula Rojas, community organizer, licensed midwife, and social justice advocate.  Paula has spent more than 25 years working on issues of gender violence, racial justice, women’s reproductive health, health care access and community alternatives to policing.  She is currently a volunteer with Communities of Color United.  We also have Brion Oaks, the first Chief Equity Officer for the City of Austin.  In this capacity he is responsible for working with city leadership and local communities to create an equity framework, and facilitate dialogue and organizational practices that support the development and adoption of equity as a shared value.  Paula and Brion are Co-Chairs of the Reimagining Public Safety Task Force which recently provided its detailed report to the Austin City Council.  And our regular guest and commentator, Jim Harrington, is with us again.  Jim is the retired founder of the Texas Civil Rights Project.  Michelle Manning-Scott, associate producer of this program, joins us as well.

In addition, Austin Sanders, Staff Writer for the Austin Chronicle, talks about a recent report from the Ending Community Homelessness Coalition (ECHO) which contains some surprising statistics.