Cruel and Unusual, Meet Caring and Relentless
The Southern Center for Human Rights began in Atlanta more than 40 years ago focused on getting people off death row. Clearly, the vast majority of people facing death penalty were black men and nearly all were victims of poor lawyers and lack of due process.
As the decades have unfolded, and the SCHR reputation has grown nationally, the organization remains lean, with a staff of under 40 and approximately 15 lawyers handling the massive case load. Their work has expanded beyond death penalty cases to include due process and inhumane prison conditions.
Mutual friend and longtime supporter of the organization, Gerry Weber, former director of the Atlanta ACLU Chapter, referred the organization to Good Thinking. We then met with Executive Director Sara Totonchi, who told us the SCHR needed a new brand story that reflected the hope and reality of many of their clients. What they really needed was a more contemporary expression of their work and the devotion and intelligence of those who serve the organization today.
It was clear from the outset that we needed to steer clear of legal cliches (e.g. “the scales of justice,” “justice is blind,” courthouse columns, gavels, eagles, etc). But we also wanted to create a brand story that implied the hope and determination rather than the horrifying, bleak, and (frankly) depressing realities most victims of the criminal justice system, incompentent public defenders, and corrections in the South that seems to delight in abusing the disadvantaged, disabled, and poor through death row sentences, wrongful imprisonment, and inhumane living conditions.
The logo, created by GTA’s Kathi Roberts, conveys that. To some it suggests hope shining through the bars of a cell. To others, the long shadow of justice cast through columns or bars. And to most, steps up and out of hopelessness and injustice. It is open to interpretation.
In addition to the graphic identity, Good Thinking collaborated with SCHR to redesign their website, moving the vital but exhausting casework information to an archives section of the site and letting the landing page and about pages have more light (white space) and room to breathe. We also created a small, inexpensive manifesto that featured the stories of 6 cases and the effect the work of the SCHR has had on the survivors and current families of the victims of injustice. Good Thinking principal photographer Artem Nazarov traveled across the state to take the portraits while Atlanta journalist Margaret Anthony did the reporting and writing.
Since the 2012 rebrand and website makeover, Sara Totonchi and her able team have made storytelling a prominent part of their recruitment and donor communications, expanding their audiences from the large and devoted classes of Atlanta, Washington, New York and West Coast legal communities to everyday citizens moved by social justice, social equity, and human rights advocates and supporters. Every month, the SCHR development teams send out short and compelling emails featuring stories of their clients and, when news breaks, triumphant stories of their courtroom success from State Court to the US Supreme Court.
“What they really needed was a more contemporary expression of their work and the devotion and intelligence of those who serve the organization today.”
A SCHR win is a win for humanity. Their impact extends to survivors, families and entire communities, especially those of color and poverty long harmed by malignant (and/or drunk, asleep, and generally incompetent) public defenders, corrupt (and often brutal, exculpatory evidence-suppressing, racist) police investigators, and pervasive, nationwide systemic racism that leads, invariably, to no due process, unjust prison terms, inhuman prison conditions, and death sentences.
No organization we’ve served has done more for the least, lost, and forgotten.
Go to SCHR Wins for Humanity and make a donation in the name of social justice.