Jeff Blackburn

A resident of El Prado died of cancer on February 7, 2023. He was 65. Jeff was born on International Worker’s Day (May 1) in 1957. He grew up in Amarillo, Texas and at the time of his death was living in both New Mexico and Texas. Jeff was a lawyer whose long legal career was spent representing the poor and disadvantaged, often for free, in criminal and civil rights cases all over Texas and the Southwest. He won many awards throughout his life and was recognized for his work in freeing the innocent and reforming the criminal justice system by the State Bar of Texas, the NAACP, the ACLU, LULAC and other organizations. He is survived by his sons Sam and John, his daughter-in-law Scotney, his two grandchildren Archer and Oliver and his partner Jessy Tyler. A full obituary for Jeff can be found at the website of Rivera Funeral Home, www.riverafuneralhome.com. There will be a public meeting celebrating his life on Saturday, March 4, 2023 at 1:00 PM at the Amarillo Botanical Gardens, followed by a reception and refreshments. Jeff’s last project was creating a new civil rights organization in northern New Mexico and southern Colorado. Memorials for him in lieu of flowers can be made to this group, the Rio Grande Regional Justice Project, c/o his partner in the project, Kathryn Hardy, Attorney at Law, P.O. Box 3602, Taos, NM 87571, kjhardylaw@gmail.com. Arrangements by Rivera Family Funeral Home. To share a memory, please visit our website at www.riverafuneralhome.com