About Us

The Ella Baker Center is named for an unsung hero of the civil rights movement who inspired and guided emerging leaders. We build on her legacy by giving people opportunities and skills to work together to strengthen our communities so that all of us can thrive.

The Problem

Mission Statement
Through organizing, leadership development and advocacy, the Ella Baker Center unlocks the power of low-income people, people of color, and their allies to transform California and inspire the world.

Decades of disinvestment in our communities have led to despair and hopelessness. Too many of us are incarcerated, too many lack access to educational and professional opportunities, and too many of our communities are viewed as the problem rather than as part of the solution. This keeps all of us from reaching our potential.

The Solution

Through our people-powered campaigns, the 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 youth and working people. Instead of basing policies on fear, we're building a society where decisions and laws are based on love and common concerns.

Our Campaigns

Like Miss Baker, we believe that when people have the knowledge, inspiration and solutions they need to address the challenges they face, they can make a difference. The Ella Baker Center motivates and mobilizes leaders to work on a variety of initiatives that bring peace, justice and opportunity to our communities.

Books Not Bars organizes the largest statewide network of families of incarcerated youth and champions policies to replace California's costly, broken youth prison system with alternatives that work.

Green-Collar Jobs Campaign builds a thriving green economy that puts the planet and people first.

Soul of the City places the well-being of Oakland directly in the hands of the community. We honor the important role that each person plays in creating a vibrant and thriving city.

Heal the Streets trains Oakland youth to become community leaders and violence prevention advocates.

Our History

When the Ella Baker Center was co-founded in 1996 by Van Jones and Diana Frappier, we were a small, scrappy start up with the slogan "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, the Ella Baker Center evolved into an effective and innovative human rights organization.

From our very start, the Ella Baker Center has used a mix of tactics to accomplish our mission ranging from grassroots organizing, direct action and media advocacy to public education, policy reform and legal service. This has earned us a reputation for tenacity and innovation. But more importantly, it has earned victory after victory for our campaigns:

  • Our pioneering Books Not Bars campaign has helped reduce the California youth prison population by more than 75% and closed five of the State's abusive prisons for kids.
  • To defeat Proposition 23, we launched a historic statewide coalition of over 130 community-based organizations and leaders throughout California, with deep roots in communities of color.
  • In just the past two years, alone, participants in our campaigns have contributed over 1500 hours of community service and voter mobilization to help Oakland thrive.
  • We spearheaded the effort to defeat Prop. 6, which would have spent billions on prison building and thrown more young people into adult prison.
  • Our advocacy brought federal and city resources together to launch the Oakland Green Jobs Corps, an innovative program to provide young adults pathways out of poverty through green careers.
  • We've sponsored -- and enacted -- multiple bills to help families stay connected to their young people while they're locked in youth prisons.
  • We built California's first-ever support and advocacy network for families of incarcerated youth.
  • We got the San Francisco Police Department to fire Marc Andaya, a brutal "cowboy" cop who beat, stomped and pepper-sprayed an unarmed black man named Aaron William to death.
  • We built a regional movement of youth activists called the Third Eye Movement who led efforts to fight Proposition 21 and used hip-hop and youth art culture to speak out for justice.
  • We derailed 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.
  • We won the dismissal of violent, abusive guards in one of California's youth prisons.
  • We secured the release of two wrongly convicted Latino youth, through a mix of advocacy and strategic media that placed the case on 60 Minutes.
  • Our organization has been an incubator for innovation. Many of the projects we have seeded have evolved into their own blossoming organizations including Green For All, FIERCE, Urban Peace Movement, and the Oakland Green Job Corps.

We are proud of what we've accomplished, but none of it would have been possible without our supporters. Please join the Ella Baker Center Action Network and help us build a world where everyone can live to their full potential.