News from Ella Baker Center

August 13, 2008 — Yesterday, the California Assembly passed our Family Communication and Rehabilitation Act in a 77-0 vote! [Read more.]

August 3, 2008 — On July 31, recently released young people, Books Not Bars family members, community leaders and other activists convened in Stockton to celebrate the official closure of two notorious youth prisons. [Read more.]

July 22, 2008 — On Tuesday July 22, 2008 the Oakland City Council Public Works Committee rubber stamped final approval for $250,000 in seed funding for the Oakland Green Job Corps. The Oakland Green Job Corps is the long awaited job-training pipeline connecting young adults with barriers to employment to the local workforce development community for "green-collar" job training. The vote is the last administrative step before implementation, officially clearing the Oakland Green Job Corps for launch in Fall 2008. [Read More]

The Oakland Tribune (September 19, 2008) — Many who have lost loved ones to violence appear on billboards in Oakland and in area BART stations with their testimony also being featured on a new Web site, PeaceInOakland.com, sponsored by the Ella Baker Center for Human Rights' Silence the Violence campaign. With 102 homicides in Oakland this year, the signs challenge readers to do something about the problem, and state simply, "It's up to ALL of us." The signs also urge residents to share their solutions and ideas on the Web site for reducing violence.

The Stockton Record (August 1, 2008) — Books Not Bars marked the official closure Thursday of a Stockton-area youth prison by shouting outside the gates for a wholesale shutdown of the state's Division of Juvenile Justice.

The Oakland Tribune (June 19, 2008) — In conjunction with numerous Silence The Violence Day Events happening throughout the Bay Area, The Ella Baker Center for Human Rights hosted an inspiring Silence The Violence Day flagship vigil, attended by more than 150 people in Oakland at Defremery Park. Kamika Dunlap of the Oakland Tribune reports on this powerful event.

San Jose Mercury News (August 5, 2008) — The closings of DeWitt Nelson Youth Correctional Facility and El Paso de Robles Youth Correctional Facility - two notorious youth prisons - are welcome news for the youths and their families who have been permanently scarred by California's abusive youth prison system. A youth prison system that has crippled California's Budget and darkened California's future.

Oakland Tribune (April 21, 2008) — The Ella Baker Center for Human Rights was acknowledged in a recent Oakland Tribune op-ed written by Unites States Congresswoman Barbara Lee this Earth Day 2008.

Oakland Tribune (February 22, 2008) — The statistics in Oakland are grim: 21 homicides in the first 42 days of 2008 (almost double the number from this time last year). In a single weekend earlier this month, 13 reported shootings in five days claimed eight lives.

In the face of this senseless violence, it's easy for a lot of us to pretend that we're removed from it all, that it has nothing to do with us as individuals. We shake our heads at the problem while keeping it at arm's length. But now more than ever, we must turn toward our young men and women caught in the crossfire, not away from them.