The Southern Poverty Law Center has named the director of its first office in Alabama.

The nonprofit advocacy organization on Tuesday announced Tafeni English-Relf as the first director of its Alabama state office. The office will focus on local concerns, specifically in rural communities, the SPLC said in a press release.

English-Relf previously served as the director of the SPLC’s Civil Rights Memorial Center (CRMC), an interpretive center in Montgomery, Ala. which provides visitors with a deeper understanding of the civil rights movement. English-Relf will retain those responsibilities in her new role at the SPLC’s Alabama state office.

“Growing up in rural Alabama, I realized how the needs of our communities are often rendered invisible to the rest of the state. I am excited to work alongside my colleagues in SPLC’s new Alabama State Office as we invest in grassroots efforts and work in partnership with the people of Alabama and community organizations,” English-Relf said in the same release. “We look forward to building capacity where the long-term work of the people will create lasting change for everyone.”

English first joined the SPLC in 1997 as a research analyst for its Intelligence Project, which monitors hate groups and other far-right extremists. She later served as the first director of the SPLC’s Mix It Up at Lunch Day program, an initiative developed to encourage school children to identify and examine social boundaries by sitting next to someone new in the cafeteria. English later worked for a number of Montgomery-based advocacy organizations including the Central Alabama Fair Housing Center and the Alabama Department of Mental Health before returning to the SPLC in 2019 as the director of the Civil Rights Memorial Center.

“Across the South, we continue to see attacks on voting rights, criminalization of poor people, lack of access to housing and health care, environmental injustices, and the erasure of Black history from textbooks, among other things. Together with communities, ALSO will address these challenges head-on so that all Alabamians can proudly call our state home,” said English-Relf.

Margaret Huang, the president and CEO of the Southern Poverty Law Center, says the organization is thrilled to welcome English-Relf to the new role.

“It is our great fortune to have Tafeni’s extraordinary leadership at the helm of the SPLC’s first Alabama state office,” said Huang. “From advocate to organizer to community service provider, she has led in many roles throughout her career. What ties them all together is Tafeni’s passion for working in partnership with communities to support and develop her home state of Alabama.”

The Alabama state office is the second office to open under SPLC’s new state office model in the organization’s 50-year history. The first SPLC state office launched in May 2022 in Jackson, Miss.