prepared by: Leah Karlins

updated: 3/22/08

Website: http://ellabakercenter.org

Mission: The Ella Baker Center for Human Rights is a strategy and action center working for justice, opportunity and peace in urban America. Based in Oakland, California, we promote positive alternatives to violence and incarceration through our four cutting-edge campaigns.

Inspiration/History:

Before there was Ella Baker Center, there was Bay Area PoliceWatch. Newly minted attorney Van Jones launched the hotline for victims of police brutality in 1995, but it got so many calls that he realized it needed a formal organization. On September 1, 1996, Ella Baker Center opened payroll. Named for the civil rights movement's unsung champion of students, sharecroppers and everyday people, Ella Baker Center proudly proclaimed, "This is not your parents' civil rights organization." Seeing the denial of voting, housing and employment rights as symptoms of a much deeper sickness, Ella Baker Center wanted to heal society by transforming it.

Driven by that passion and a willingness to take on tough fights that nobody else would, we chose our mission: to document, challenge and expose human rights abuses.

Our accomplishments in the past ten years:

• We got the San Francisco Police Department tofire Marc Andaya, a brutal "cowboy" copwho beat, stomped and pepper-sprayed an unarmed black man named Aaron William to death.
  
• Wederailed plans to build a massive "super-jail"for youth. For two years, we led a "strange-bedfellows" coalition of urban youth and suburban homeowners in a campaign to stop Alameda County's plans to build what would have been one of the biggest juvenile halls in the country — at a time when juvenile crime was steadily falling.
  
• Wewon sweeping reformsin the San Francisco Police Department's policy towards the mentally disabled.
  
• Webuilt California's first-ever support and advocacy network for families of incarcerated youth.
  
• Wecreated one of the nation's leading youth organizations, Silence the Violence. Silence the Violence works to prevent violence on Oakland streets, whether from police or residents. It also trains youth as advocates for rehabilitation and job opportunities.
  
• We won thedismissal of violent, abusive guardsin one of California's youth prisons.
  
• Wesecured the release of two wrongly-convicted Latino youth, through a mix of advocacy and strategic media that placed the case on60 Minutes.
  
• Welaunched a pioneering campaign to transform the California Youth Authority. In just under two years the campaign has won critical reforms, and the population of the CYA has dropped by more than 40 percent.

Business Model:

They are not really a business, but they do say:

We use a mix of tactics to accomplish our mission, from grassroots organizing, direct action and media advocacy to public education, policy reform and legal service.

Theory of Change:

We need to break the cycle of violence and reinvest in our cities. Ella Baker Center offers smart solutions and uplifting alternatives to violence and incarceration.

The safest neighborhoods aren’t the ones with the most prisons and the most police. They’re the ones with the best schools, the cleanest environment, and the most opportunities for young people and working people. That’s what we want for urban America: justice in the system; opportunity in our cities; and peace on our streets.

Core Programs:

Books Not Bars
Campaigning to reform California’s abusive & costly youth prison system.
Green-Collar Jobs Campaign
Creating opportunities in the "green" economy for poor communities and communities of color.
Bay Area PoliceWatch
Supporting victims and survivors of police abuse and their families.
Silence the Violence
Uplifting young people and addressing Bay Area violence with a mix of social activism and street culture.

Recent Developments (if applicable):

--In September 2007, they launched "Green for all," a new national spin-off initiative that aims to secure $1 billion in funding for green-collar job training in order to lift 250,000 people out of poverty across the country

--They are currently sponsoring the Family Communication and Rehabilitation act to make it easier for family members to keep in touch with their loved ones who are locked up in the Division of Juvenile Justice and require youth prisons to notify family of suicide attempts and other medical emergencies.

Biography of Diana Frappier:

Diana is a founding member of the Ella Baker Center for Human Rights, and has remained the behind the scenes support that makes the Center's work possible. Diana has proudly supported the organization's growth from a small-scale operation of one full-time staff into a grassroots powerhouse. Diana received her B.A. in Social Welfare and her J.D. at Hastings College of Law. While she is not focused on the Ella Baker Center, she is operating a private community criminal defense practice, and serving on the boards of Bay Area non-profits Machen Center and TURF (Together United Recommitted Forever.) This San Francisco native is also a real estate broker, supporting activists and other members of her community to empower themselves through homeownership.

Questions to be Raised During Visit (3-4):

(1) Who is going to pay to train urban youth to work in green collar jobs? Governments, the industry, individuals? Is there a possibility of this model ever becoming self-sustaining?

(2) Is there already a green collar industry in Oakland for trained workers to enter, or will they have to seek worse elsewhere?