Civil Rights Jobs in Virginia (NOW HIRING)

About the Legal Aid Justice Center:

The Legal Aid Justice Center is a nationally recognized, non-profit organization that partners with low-income clients and communities of color in Virginia to fight for racial, social, and economic justice. We understand that the harms our clients endure are inextricably linked to overarching systems of injustice. Together we are dismantling those systems through a combination of community organizing, litigation, policy advocacy, public relations, and individual legal services.

Founded in 1967, LAJC has offices in Charlottesville, Richmond, Petersburg, and Falls Church and provides services under six key program areas: Civil Rights & Racial Justice (focuses on the criminal legal system), Housing & Consumer Justice, Youth Justice, Health Justice & Public Benefits, Immigrant Justice, and Worker Justice. As examples of LAJC's recent work, our lawsuit and organizing against the state forced reform of Virginia's unemployment insurance system, including advocacy that resulted in the distribution of over $1 billion in illegally withheld payments to over 160,000 Virginians. During the pandemic, we demanded and secured a statewide eviction moratorium and emergency pandemic protections that helped hundreds of families avoid eviction. We reduced incarceration across the state, including reducing the population of a local immigration detention center down to historically low levels through a coordinated effort of organizing paired with impact and individual litigation. Our staff are on the front lines of some of the most important anti-poverty fights happening today.

With a staff of over 90, the past few years have been a time of exciting growth and opportunity for the organization. In addition to the growth of programmatic efforts including increased organizing capacity, LAJC has expanded its operations and administrative capacity, created new opportunities for professional growth and leadership among staff, engaged in ongoing race equity work, and explored changes to organizational structure to deepen its efforts to create long-term, sustainable, community-driven change.
LAJC's latest strategic plan is available at https://www.justice4all.org/lajc-strategic-plan-2022-2026/#area%20d.

For more information about LAJC's work and programs, visit www.justice4all.org.
About the Position:

Looking to improve your organizing skills in a supportive environment while working alongside experienced organizers in Virginia? The Legal Aid Justice center is excited to open applications for our Organizer Fellows Cohort! Fellows will work on a part-time basis over a period of eight months and pair up with experienced organizers to engage with the community and learn organizing skills.

This part-time position is for one organizing fellow, in the Civil Rights and Racial Justice Program in Charlottesville. The Civil Rights and Racial Justice Program (CRRJ) works to end the criminalization of poverty in Virginia by exposing and addressing criminal legal system policies that target people because of poverty and race. Through a mix of community organizing, local and statewide policy advocacy, and litigation, our program intervenes at every point in the criminal legal system. Our campaigns range from initial law enforcement contact in the community, through the courts, to individuals' confinement in Virginia's jails and prisons, and finally to their reentry into the community.

The position will begin in the second half of August or early September 2026. We are especially seeking applicants with lived experience in the criminal legal or carceral system, or those who have been directly impacted by incarceration through their own experiences, their families, or their communities. We value the knowledge, leadership, and perspective that directly impacted people bring to this work and encourage them to apply.

This position reports to the Program's Senior Supervising Organizer, who reports to the Program Director of the Civil Rights & Racial Justice Program. This position will work closely with attorneys and community organizer in the Richmond, Charlottesville, and Falls church offices.

This Fellow will pair with our CRRJ Senior Organizer, Harold Folley, to support the growth and work of the People's Coalition group as they engage a campaign to create a Law Enforcement Assisted Diversion program in Charlottesville that will offer different supportive alternatives to arrest and prosecution. This program has the purpose of reducing the harms of policing, incarceration, and ending the criminalization of poverty.

The cohort will also have opportunities to learn and work as a group. All fellows will receive trainings throughout the program on core organizing skills: one-on-ones and base buildings, leadership development, group facilitation, campaign development, power mapping, coalition building and navigating conflict, as well as other development opportunities.

Job Duties:

• Work with the organizer to engage the community via active listening, education, and information-gathering regarding issues relevant to the fellowship's program.
• Assist the organizer to work alongside low-income community members to identify needs and engage in community advocacy strategies. This includes, but is not limited to, direct action and community participation in local and state systems to carry out LAJC's mission and programmatic goals as they relate the needs of the area the fellowship is based on.
• Support a campaign that will build power and advance policies designated to combat poverty.
• Promote racial equity across all dimensions, including with LAJC and within your work in the community and partners.
• Racial Equity: Promote racial equity across all dimensions, including with LAJC by doing the following:
  • Helping to recruit, retain, and support both staff and leadership that reflect the racial composition of our community;
  • Cultivating respect for the work and expanding resources for non-attorney staff that are disproportionately people of color;
  • Creating spaces for staff to discuss issues of racial, gender, and all other issues of marginalization; and
  • Pushing for institutional and cultural changes by management, the board, and staff to further promote racial equity.