Grantee Cohort Spring 2022
For the past 25 years, the Ella Baker Center for Human Rights (EBC) has worked to shift resources away from prisons and punishment and toward opportunities that make Black, Brown, and low-income communities safe, healthy, and strong. Based in Oakland, EBC’s state-level policy efforts and local organizing drive concrete shifts, including resentencing reform, community-driven municipal budgets, ending youth incarceration, and addressing racial discrimination in California’s criminal legal system.
EBC’s annual Night Out for Safety and Liberation (NOSL) was founded in 2013 as an alternative to the police-centric National Night Out. NOSL challenges police-driven narratives of public safety, and advances a vision of safety rooted in health, education, living-wage jobs, and other opportunities communities need to thrive.
EBC organizes NOSL trans-locally with community organizations across the United States. Providing tools — such as art, discussion guides, and organizing and social media toolkits — EBC invites communities to define what safety means to them. Through block parties, direct actions, mutual aid, and other NOSL events, these communities uplift their vision and bring members together in care and celebration.
