This International Women’s Day Prestonsburg is abuzz with a wonderful group of law students serving during their spring break. Students from UC Berkeley and Notre Dame law have been volunteering at AppalReD Legal Aid since the 1970’s. Yet amongst all the energy, joy, and sense of purpose the students bring, the conflict in Ukraine looms in the background and weighs heavy on everyone’s hearts.
Today then, on International Women’s Day, it is apt to honor former AppalReD Legal Aid Intern Maggi Popkin, who found her calling working in El Salvador during the midst of civil war.
It’s an International Women’s Day that calls for courage, cool heads, . . . and also quite possibly chocolate chip cookies.
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During the summer of 1978, Maggi Popkin, a law student at UC Berkeley, served as a summer intern. Her brother, Dr. Jeremy Popkin, states, “That summer in Prestonsburg was an important experience for her. Having grown up in a middle-class academic environment, she was struck by the poverty of Eastern Kentucky and the many injustices suffered by the population. She also learned some lessons about dealing with people who were not necessarily welcoming to outsiders, even those who came with good intentions. She would call a male miner’s home and she would often get the miner’s wife, who would be extremely suspicious of another woman trying to reach her husband.”
From her summer spent in Prestonsburg to her human rights advocacy in El Salvador, Maggi spent the rest of her life fighting for the poor, often in rural communities. The rapport she built with besieged fearful communities was critical to her work.
After law school, she worked at the National Center for Immigrant Rights and represented many clients who had fled violence in El Salvador. She decided to see for herself the conditions first-hand. She fell in love with the country and the people and wound up returning to do human-rights work there during the worst of the civil war in the country.
During the height of violence and corruption, Popkin remained steady. She worked as Deputy Director of Human Rights at the Catholic University of San Salvador space. UCA prided itself as a private space where there could be open debate on what was occurring in the country. The Jesuit priests who worked there were some of the country’s top scholars: Ignacio Ellacuría, Ignacio Martín-Baró, Amando López, Juan Ramón Moreno, Joaquín López y López, and Maggi’s direct boss Father Segundo Montes also often served rural communities caught in war zones. However, state-run propaganda focused on the Jesuits and fueled hatred. Despite this, the Jesuits continued “to take care of the poor, the hungry, and those who had nothing” (Hajeck 2019). In the early morning hours of November 16, 1989, Maggi’s six Jesuit colleagues and two others were massacred by right-wing military officers.
Just a few months earlier Popkin wrote in a letter home, “The juxtaposition of the everyday—sun shining, flowers blooming—and incomprehensible violence never ceases to amaze me.” Driven by her mission, Maggi returned to her office as soon as it reopened. In the years following, Maggi interviewed numerous political prisoners (and brought them homemade chocolate chip cookies). These individuals were suspected of involvement in subversive activities and supporting the FMLN. There trials were held by the military and closed to the public. She carried out countless field investigations, interviewing victims as well as judges, lawyers, police, and military forces.
Her courage and cool head were legendary. For example, when she arrived at a remote village during a rural field investigation, a group of villagers immediately asked for her help. The military had taken a villager and were severely beating him. Popkin stated, “So we sort of got up our courage and walked up to the lieutenant who was in charge of the operation, and asked him what was going on, and explained our understanding of the law, and were able to convince him to release this person. And we were able to take the person who had been being beaten into San Salvador where he received medical treatment for his wounds” (July 3, 2002 Testimony).
Her nephew, science writer Gabriel Popkin, shared, “To be honest I think she actually wasn’t terribly self-confident, which makes it all the more remarkable that she did what she did, standing up to military men and advocating for people who didn’t have a voice.”
Later, in 2002, Popkin served as an expert witness testifying to how the “Salvadoran justice system was incapable of providing justice to victims of human rights abuses” (July 3, 2002 Testimony). Her testimony led to the jury’s decision that the Defense Ministers and Head of the National Guard “bore command responsibility” for the torturing of individuals from 1979-1983 (Coliver 2005).
After eight years living in El Salvador, Maggi returned to the D.C. area with her son Damian. Maggi Popkin served as the Executive Director of the Due Process of Law Foundation from 1999-2005. She often returned to Kentucky to visit her nephews and brother in Lexington, KY. An enthusiastic outdoors person who loved the mountains, she enjoyed hiking in the Red River Gorge. Then, in 2005, the world lost an incredible human rights advocate and person when Maggi died too young.
Though her legacy lives on. Maggi’s son, Joel Damian Popkin, works with at-risk youth and his wife works for the public defender. Dr. Popkin reports, “Damian recently married a wonderful young woman lawyer . . .We like to think that Maggi would be pleased to know that the daughter-in-law she never met was a lawyer with the same impulse to use her training for the good of others.”
This International Women’s Day we celebrate the courage of women and girls around the world. We’re thankful to all who fight for justice and the poor, including the 43 amazing women who work at AppalReD Legal Aid.
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