Ella Baker Center for Human Rights

About Ella Baker Center for Human Rights

he Ella Baker Center organizes to shift resources away from prisons and punishment towards opportunities that make our communities safe, healthy, and strong. Named after civil rights hero Ella Baker, we mobilize Black, Brown, and low-income people to build power and prosperity in our communities. We are on a mission to end mass incarceration, and put a stop to the Framework of Fear that has dominated public safety in America for more than 200 years. In our Executive Director Zach Norris's book, Defund Fear: Safety Without Police, Prisons, or Punishment, he lays out the change we are working to make. It is a blueprint for a radical shift in America's approach to public safety, away from fear and punishment and toward growth and support systems for our families and communities. The book has been widely endorsed, including by Patrisse Cullors and other leading figures in the Black Lives Matter movement. Named for Ella Baker, an unsung hero of the civil rights movement who inspired and guided emerging leaders, we give people opportunities and skills to work together to strengthen our communities so that all of us can thrive. We work to advance racial and economic justice to ensure dignity and opportunity for low-income people and people of color. Transforming the criminal justice system is the key focus of everything we do.