It didn’t take Jim Harrington long to get to work helping others after graduating from University of Detroit’s School of Law in 1973.
In fact, he started what would become his life’s work just 36 hours later in rural Texas.
“I absolutely knew what I wanted to do,” Harrington said. “I was going to get my Law degree and go to Texas to work with farm workers.
“I walked right in the front door and had no idea what was going to happen, and the rest they say is history.”
Harrington would spend the next five decades using his Law degree to help thousands of migrant workers, community members and others across Texas.
The work eventually led him to founding the Texas Civil Rights Project, which promoted social, racial and economic justice and civil liberty for low income and poor communities. He helped lead some of the biggest civil rights wins for Texas workers and communities.
“To do that kind of work is the Gospel, I’m doing social justice,” he said. “Following the message of Jesus, that was driving me all the time, no matter where I was.
“The reason I came to Texas is because there was nobody there that would do the legal work that needed to be done,” he said. I knew the people, and I also knew of the need. That’s why I did it.”
Harrington knew of the situation in Texas because he had worked with them before.
Through the Diocese of Lansing, he spent seven summers in southwest Michigan—in St. Joseph and Berrian Springs—working with migrant farmers, most of them from Rio Grande Valley in southern Texas. Each summer, 25,000 to 35,000 migrant workers harvest crops; it’s where Harrington found his calling.
“That really helped form what I was going to do,” he said. “I was going to go to Law school, and then go to Texas, where almost everybody (I worked with) was from.
“The farm worker movement, Cesar Chavez, was catching fire around the country, and many people were going to California to work. There were plenty of lawyers in California, so I went to Texas. I wanted to go down there and help the people there.”
When he arrived in Texas, Harrington served as the director of the South Texas Project in the Rio Grande Valley, a position he held for 10 years. While there, he helped farm workers and the community through his legal work, which included class action suits for the rights of farm workers, compensation and working conditions, among other justice pursuits.
He was the legal director of the Texas Civil Liberties Union, before founding the Texas Civil Rights Project in 1990, growing the nonprofit foundation from its inception to an established community-based proponent of civil rights along the borders in the Rio Grande Valley and El Paso.
Harrington helped lead important cases to advocate for communities and their workers. Those cases included a win at the Texas Supreme Court that provided expanded legal aid for people. He helped secure privacy as a fundamental right under the state constitution, and secured workers and unemployment compensation for farmers, which helped bring millions of dollars into families, the valley and south Texas.
“All had different ramifications, but the farm worker cases to me, if there was only one thing that I had time enough to do on Earth, it would be to help them,” he said.
Harrington came to U-D initially for a degree in Philosophy, and graduated with a master’s in Philosophy, before attending the University’s Law school. He remembers the University leaving a lasting impression on him, including then President Malcolm Carron, S.J.
“He listened to people,” Harrington said. “You would see him everywhere and he was humble. You knew he was listening and that he was thinking, and that he had the best interests of the University and the community at heart.
“That was different. He had that Jesuit charism. I really admired him.”
The University helped prepare Harrington for the tough work fighting for thousands of people over his career. One reason he chose to attend Law school at U-D was because of its clinical program.
“I think I learned more law in the clinic, having to practice in the courts with a supervisor, than I would have in the classroom,” Harrington said. “U-D was pioneering that at that time. That was very formative for me.”
Recently, Harrington wrote a memoir, “The Texas Civil Rights Project” that was published in September and focuses on his career and working with the rural Texas community.
“What I tried to do with the memoir was to focus on community work, the work that I was able to do with the community,” he said. “I talked about the cases that we did, working with the community and how important it was to work with the community.”
At 79, the work continues for Harrington. He continues fighting for others and also serves as an ordained priest for an Episcopal church in Texas, which acts as a missional community, advocating for the migrant community in surrounding Hispanic areas.
“I’m retired from the Civil Rights Project, but I’m still practicing law,” he said. “I’m doing an enormous amount of work for immigrants right now.
“I can’t sit back and retire. Retirement for me was just a date. I’m still doing what I can for the community, because that’s what Jesus wants. I have loved it and I find great joy and happiness in the tough work. It’s really hard work, but doing it and working with the people in the community was such a blessing.”
Harrington’s memoir, “The Texas Civil Rights Project,” is available from University of Texas Press.
