JUSTICE IN TULIA, TEX.

The Jan. 22 news story on the Tulia, Tex., drug sting gave the impression
that all of Tulia's white citizens defend the operation while all its black
citizens decry it.

For months, The Friends of Justice, a Tulia-based multiracial organization,
was a voice crying in the wilderness until it caught the attention of Nate
Blakeslee, a journalist who is now editor of the Texas Observer. Mr.
Blakeslee's award-winning article provided the narrative core for
subsequent articles in major newspapers.

When Will Harrell, president of the Texas branch of the American Civil
Liberties Union, announced that his organization was filing a lawsuit
against the principal actors in the Tulia sting, he was surrounded by
black, white and Hispanic children sporting Friends of Justice T-shirts.
The William Moses Kunstler Fund for Racial Justice got wind of the outrage
unfolding in Tulia because Charles Kiker, a founding member of Friends of
Justice, contacted the fund.

We're black, we're white and we won't back down until justice rolls down
like the waters through the parched grassland of Swisher County and
righteousness flows through tiny Tulia like an ever-flowing stream.

Alan Bean, Co-chair, Friends of Justice, Tulia, Tex.