Elisabeth Harper Epps (she/her/hers), JD, is an abolitionist, activist, legal advocate and analyst based in Colorado. A former deputy state public defender and a graduate of the University of Virginia School of Law, Elisabeth serves as Founder/Director of the Colorado Freedom Fund (CFF) and Co-Lead of the Denver Justice Project (DJP). Elisabeth was raised in America’s south by an activist mother, and upon becoming a mother at age 16 Elisabeth raised her own now young adult son in the same activist tradition. For over two decades Elisabeth has been active in building political power and organizing around social justice, since long before she knew formal terms for the activity that would become her life’s work.
As Co-Lead of Denver Justice Project Elisabeth is committed to its three goals: transforming law enforcement; ending mass incarceration; achieving racial justice. From her direct action work with DJP a new initiative was launched to restore the presumption of innocence to people awaiting trial in Colorado—the Colorado Freedom Fund. CFF is a constituent-led organizing project to pool community resources and buy freedom for people languishing in Colorado cages only because of their inability to afford bond. A revolving bond fund, CFF is dedicated to one mission: ending money bail in Colorado and ensuring bond is not replaced with equally carceral options. As Founder/Director of the Colorado Freedom Fund, Elisabeth manages CFF’s day-to-day operations of reducing harm to people hurt by money bond while leading CFF’s policy efforts to abolish cash bail entirely–in Colorado, and beyond.
Elisabeth is most proud of her son who is an outstanding kind brave person, an exceptional athlete, and a college senior. Her son and her newborn triplet nephews are the motivation and love for all her abolition efforts. In addition to adoring the four aforementioned humans, Elisabeth enjoys basketball, building with her extensive LEGO collection, travel, studying languages, and logic puzzles.
“I am thrilled to join the 2019 TLC cohort; the timing couldn’t be better. It is an honor to enter a community of people dedicated to cultivating sustainable leadership across Colorado’s ecosystem, learning and modeling real accountability work, and having courageous conversations that usher in progress across our disciplines. How exciting to collaborate with folks committed to collective liberation on all fronts, particularly fostering Black/Brown/Indigenous unity. My liberation depends on your liberation, and I’m humbled to build with people who believe the same.“