Ella Baker Center Staff & Board

Jakada became Ella Baker Center's Executive Director in 2007, after serving as a lead strategist and chief team member on some of Ella Baker Center's most high profile campaigns for eight years.

Prior to becoming Executive Director, Jakada directed Books Not Bars, taking the ongoing campaign to replace California's abusive youth prisons with effective rehabilitation programs to ever-increasing heights. Jakada helped lead the successful Stop the Super Jail Campaign, a two-year effort to stop Alameda County from building a massive, expensive and remote juvenile hall that it didn't need. He was a leader in the Justice for Moreno and Pacheco Campaign, the successful fight to free two wrongly convicted Latino boys in Solano County. And he ran Ella Baker Center's youth organizing project, Third Eye Movement, during the No on 21 campaign to educate voters about the dangers of Proposition 21, a draconian ballot measure aimed at putting 14-year-olds in adult courts and 16-year-olds in adult prisons.

Before joining Ella Baker Center staff, Jakada was a Constituent Liaison for Oakland City Councilwoman Nancy Nadel. He helped launch or lead a number of important Bay Area organizations, including Empowered Youth Educating Society (EYES), Rising Youth for Social Equality (RYSE) and Underground Railroad (an artist collective).

Born and raised in Oakland, California, Jakada is the father of four powerful and creative young girls. You can read his articles on Ella's Voice as well follow his contributions to City Brights and the Huffington Post.

Shemika Skipworth joins Ella Baker Center as the Director of Finance and Operations with ten years of accounting experience and five years of human resources experience. She's worked in the nonprofit sector for seven years, at Family Builders by Adoption and New Connections. In her free time, Shemika enjoys spending time with her son and her younger sister.

As associate director, Kris works with our program staff to ensure the fulfillment and longevity of our work. Prior to joining the Ella Baker Center in 2006, Kris worked independently as a grant writer, communications consultant and lobbyist in Sacramento, with clients such as the Drug Policy Alliance, Coalition for Effective Public Safety, Californians United for a Responsible Budget, Critical Resistance, California Bicycle Coalition and the International Association of Skateboard Companies. Kris has also worked in nonprofit development and administration with environmental advocacy groups such as Friends of the River and the Planning and Conservation League.
As a former federal prisoner of the war on drugs, Kris has experienced first-hand the waste and futility of our society's over-reliance upon incarceration. He draws from his experience an untiring commitment to justice and a passion to promote opportunity-based alternatives to imprisonment and violence.

Jessica comes to the Ella Baker Center, having started her fundraising career in 1997 at the University of Chicago Law School.  Since then, she has worked at various Bay Area organizations serving underrepresented youth of color in education at places such as Outward Bound, the Level Playing Field Institute and Juma Ventures.  She is excited to broaden her scope of work at the Ella Baker Center, where numerous strategies are used to make lasting change in low-income communities through policy, activism, youth engagement and leadership development.

Jessica received her Masters in Social Sciences from the University of Chicago and her Bachelors degree from UCLA.  Originally, she expected to become a professor of Art History but decided her work and passion was really in increasing the opportunities for youth to succeed. Growing up in Los Angeles and having made it successfully through what was then the thriving public school system, she has seen the decline of education and the impact it has had on students in underserved communities.  Jessica lives with her husband, Ken, in Emeryville. In their spare time, they can be found at Point Isabel with their beloved pup, Kumba, or riding their bikes in the East Bay hills.

Meredith is excited to be a member of the Ella Baker Center team and work to build on the legacy of Miss Ella Jo Baker. Most recently she served for over 7 years as the National Program Director of COLAGE, a national movement of children, youth, and adults with LGBTQ parents. Prior to that, she was the Youth Services Coordinator at the Richmond Village Beacon in San Francisco. Meredith holds a BA in Political Science, Jewish Studies and Women's Studies from Wellesley College and is originally from Peoria, IL. Outside of her paid work, Meredith is a drag and burlesque entertainer who uses performance to promote social justice and positivity. She is also an avid reader and foodie, has a secret talent at playing Boggle, and participates in radical Jewish organizing. You can read Meredith's writing on Ella's Voice and in the forthcoming book "Let's Get this Straight" from Seal Press.

Sumayyah became the Campaign Director of Books Not Bars  after many years of leading the project's policy work, crafting and tracking legislation and conducting extensive research to support the campaign's effort to reform the California juvenile justice system. After working at the Family Violence Law Center and Equal Rights Advocates during law school, Sumayyah came to the Ella Baker Center for Human Rights for a fellowship after graduating. When her fellowship expired, EBC was thrilled to add her to its team as a grassroots organizer. She served as one of the primary people responsible for leading Families for Books Not Bars, the only statewide network of families whose children are locked away in California youth prisons.

As the Books Not Bars Policy Associate, Jennifer combines her extensive policy work experience with her exceptional organizing skills to further the goals of the Books Not Bars campaign through state and local policy change. After graduating from UCLA with a B.A. in English and a B.A. in Korean, Jennifer pursued her interest in the criminal justice system at the University of San Francisco, School of Law. Her course of study has focused on Children's Rights and Juvenile Law. As a pending recipient of the School's Public Interest Certificate, she has had past experience working with organizations such as Learning for Life and Habitat for Humanity. It was during her internship with Books Not Bars as a policy intern when she committed herself to reforming California's juvenile justice system and joined our staff as the Books Not Bars Lead Organizer. When she isn't advocating for the rights of youth, you can find her sipping British high tea or cheering at a Giants game.

Lourdes is a Families Organizer with Books Not Bars. She is a founding member of Families for Books Not Bars and assisted in growing the membership from 10 members to over 400 members. She has spoken extensively on the issue of juvenile justice reform in both the English and Spanish media. She is a former member of Coleman Advocates for Youth and she continues to fight for juvenile justice reform locally in San Francisco where she is from and at the state level. She has worked previously as a sales person for various telephone companies and as a childcare provider. These experiences and her experience fighting for justice for her own son have proved invaluable for her as a families organizer.

While in college, Kevin co-founded 826 Boston, a youth center dedicated to supporting students with their writing,  After graduating, Kevin returned home to the Bay Area to begin a fifteen-month public service fellowship at the Ella Baker Center. Over the course of his fellowship, Kevin coordinated research efforts to defeat Proposition 6 and worked with Books Not Bars' organizers to develop leadership training for families of incarcerated youth. While he pursues his master's degree in city planning, Kevin continues to provide research support to Books Not Bars. If he had more time, Kevin would also like to be a park ranger and a poet.

Ian Kim is Director of the Green-Collar Jobs Campaign at the Ella Baker Center for Human Rights. He is an accomplished coalition builder and policy advocate. The Green-Collar Jobs Campaign advocates for policy solutions that can build a strong, equitable and green economy. Statewide, the Campaign convenes the California Green Recovery Network, a multi-sector alliance for a green economic recovery. In Oakland, the Campaign is building a movement for the boldest, most equitable, and most creative climate plan of any city in the U.S.

In previous years, the Campaign championed a local demonstration project called the Oakland Green Jobs Corps to showcase job training that can provide green pathways out of poverty; and the Campaign played a central role in winning pathways out of poverty as part of the federal Green Jobs Act of 2007, which authorizes 5 million annually for green job training (and was funded at 0 million in the 2009 American Recovery and Reinvestment Act).

Ian serves on the Oakland Workforce Investment Board and was Vice-Chair of the Oakland Oil Independence Task Force. He also serves on the Steering Committee of the California Apollo Alliance and the Executive Committee of the California EDGE Campaign. Ian holds an MBA from the Yale School of Management.

Evelyn "Evy" Marcelina Rangel-Medina was born in Fresnillo, Zacatecas, Mexico. Her great uncle began her family’s fourth generational tradition of survival when he migrated to the United States to work as a farm worker. Evy continued this tradition when she walked to cross the U.S.-Mexican border at the age of 6 with her 8 year old brother. Her mother, family and community are the interwoven strings that form the foundations of her spiritual, cultural and political activism. She served as Student Body President for the Community College of Southern Nevada and Co-Founder of the Alliance of Students of Color (ASOC) and the United Coalition for Immigrant Rights (UCIR). In 2006, she led the largest grassroots political mobilization in Nevada—shutting down the Las Vegas Strip, while coordinating a statewide economic boycott to fight for the human rights of undocumented immigrants. She was a Public Policy and International Affairs Fellow at the Goldman School of Public Policy at the University of California, Berkeley. Currently, she is the Policy Director for the Green-Collar Jobs Campaign at the Ella Baker Center for Human Rights where she crafts climate, racial and economic justice policy solutions that will build a green economy strong enough to lift people out of poverty. Evy's political visions are focused on creating a borderless and envirolicious world wherein all living beings are free and co-exist with self-determination. Read more of Evy's analysis on Ella's Voice.

Emily Kirsch is our Lead Organizer for the Green-Collar Jobs Campaign. Emily is building cross-sector partnerships between green businesses, labor, environmental and community based organizations to create local partnerships, policies and pilot programs that create green-collar jobs for low-income people, people of color and women. Emily convenes the Oakland Climate Action Coalition, the Oakland Apollo Alliance and is on the Steering Committee of the Local Clean Energy Alliance. With a BA from San Francisco State University in Urban Health & Sustainability, Emily is passionate about creating solutions that save both lives and our planet. After work, Emily enjoys training the Brazilian martial art of Capoeira. Check out Emily on Ella's Voice.

Keocco Larry is a socially active student from Chicago, Illinois. Some of her goals are to help uplift communities of color out of poverty and to help insure that all children have an equal access to a quality education. She is the youngest of eight siblings and
credits her social activism to her dad who discussed the politics of society everyday at the breakfast table. Keocco is currently a senior at Chicago State University where she is pursuing her Bachelor's degree in Liberal Studies. She volunteered with the Obama Campaign where she was trained and eventually became a Deputy field Organizer. As an organizer she organized phone banks and conducted door-to-door canvassing. She currently serves as President to the Pre-Law Association at Chicago State University where she assist students in the law school application process, host forums with guest speakers in government and legal fields and a number of other things. In 2009 she took home the second place winnings from the John Marshall Law School (JMLS) Regional
Mock Trail Competition where each member of her team received 00 in scholarships towards their first year at JMLS. She currently sits on the executive board of the African American Studies Association at Chicago State University. Keocco is also a member of the Thurgood Marshall College Fund. She loves seafood, and her favorite color is peach. When Keocco is not working she is usually enjoying a water park, out listening to some live music or spending time with her family.

As a first generation Nigerian, Nwamaka did not actively begin pursuing her interest in civil rights and social justice issues until she attended the University of California- Davis. There, Nwamaka edited the African American magazine and organizing the Pan-African Student Organization on campus.

She began volunteering with the Ella Baker Center because she
believed in the organization's commitment in providing innovative solutions for some of the hardest problems affecting our cities.  She first joined our team as the Director of the Green-Collar Jobs Campaign before moving into the leadership of Soul of the City. She is an active member of Ella's Daughters, a national networking organization focused on connecting women activists and organizers from across the nation around issues affecting our communities. Follow Nwamaka on Ella's Voice.

Alicia is a multiracial Xicana feminist, scholar and activist from Altadena, California who believes in the power of love to radically transform systems of oppression. She was raised by a powerful single Latina mother who instilled in her the values of survival, empathy and justice. It was her mother Monica who encouraged her to begin doing social justice work at the age of 15 with the National Conference of Community and Justice in Los Angeles, California-a human relations organization dedicated to fighting bias, bigotry and racism in America.

In 2004 Alicia moved to the Bay Area to attend the University of California, Berkeley where she double majored in Ethnic Studies and Peace and Conflict Studies. Since her transition, Alicia has been very active in teaching low-income youth and organizing around immigrant rights and access to higher education. As an undergraduate, Alicia took up multiple leadership positions on-campus and worked closely with the Multicultural Student Development. In addition, she has done policy advocacy with the Greenlining Institute and worked on youth empowerment through Glide Memorial Church, the Early Academic Outreach Program and Aim High.

This past summer, Alicia became part of the Ella Baker Center familia and now serves as the Soul of the City Campaign Associate. She is simultaneously working towards her M.A. within the College of Ethnic Studies at San Francisco University. Outside of work, you can find Alicia sharing her love for running in East Oakland where she coaches 4th and 5th grade girls with a non-profit prevention program called Girls On the Run. Follow Alicia on Ella's Voice.

Crystallee brings a wealth of experience to Heal the Streets, the Ella Baker Center's newest campaign. Before coming to the Bay Area, she was a professor of Sociology at a number of community colleges and universities in Michigan and completed a Visiting Instructor position at Lake Superior State University. Besides being an experienced community organizer, campaign manager, grant writer and project developer, she's also been a freelance journalist for the last 10 years and a strong advocate for racial justice, economic opportunity, LGBT rights and equality.

A native of Flint, Michigan, Crystallee holds a B.S. in Political Science from Northern Michigan University and an M.A. in Social Sciences from Eastern Michigan University.

As the Development Associate, Madelein is the primary grant writer and foundation contact for Ella Baker Center where she reports on the successes of our four campaigns in creating justice in the system, opportunity in our cities and peace on our streets. Prior to joining the Ella Baker Center, Madelein worked with various private law firms, the American Civil Liberties Union of Northern California researching police brutality cases and the Legal Aid Society of NYC advocating for prisoner's rights.

In her free time, Madelein loves reading feminist theory & science fiction, drinking coffee with friends and exploring the various vegan restaurants in the Bay Area.

Maya Garza graduated from Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, Maryland with a degree in Political Science. She spent the last two years working for a city councilman providing constituent services and community outreach to residents in Southeast Baltimore. Having worked one-on-one with diverse community members, she was inspired to seek out an organization that makes a difference in the lives of local residents. She is very excited to have the opportunity to be part of the work being done at the Ella Baker Center.

Hayes has been providing invaluable technological support to progressive non-profits in the San Francisco Bay Area for almost ten years. He started soon after earning his undergraduate degree, working at a childcare center in West Oakland. Not only did he provide the center with ongoing technical support (like maintaining workstations, servers, and printers), he also developed a state-of-the-art database system to help the center manage complex reporting and attendance requirements. Seeing that non-profits needed help making better use of technology, Hayes joined Techsperience, a small Oakland-based consultancy, in 2000. That was where he first encountered Ella Baker Center, one of the many non-profits he has helped to improve their use and management of technology resources. After helping repair and upgrade the PoliceWatch database, Hayes spent the next five years providing Ella Baker Center with emergency technical support. In 2005, Ella Baker Center decided that Hayes had become too valuable to remain a consultant and brought him on staff as Director of Information Technology. Since then, he has transformed the agency's entire technology framework. Hayes resides in East Oakland with his brother, his dog, two goats, three chickens, and four cars (one biodiesel, another with no engine).

Abel Habtegeorgis has been working around issues of social justice for
more than 10 years with a particular focus on leveraging media for
change and providing mentorship to youth of color. He has advocated for
better recruitment and retention for people of color on college campuses, immigrant’s rights, and a greater investment in education for our disenfranchised youth. He has used his knowledge of public relations to highlight issues around discrimination, violence and social justice while working in the areas of media communication and outreach strategy development. Past jobs include media positions at the Mosaic Cross Cultural Center and the Cesar Chavez Community Action Center. Abel has also spoken at the Tommie Smith and John Carlos “Fists of Freedom” ceremony, Young Leaders Summit, and The Conference of Indigenous Peoples. He is also a graduate of the NCCJ Leadership Today program, the Center for Third World Organizing, and has been inducted into the Associated Students “A.S. 55 Club” for his work in student activism. Abel has also participated in a PBS Documentary Series in the summer of 2006 entitled Roadtrip Nation. Abel is an editor and frequent contributor to Ella's Voice.

Originally from Los Angeles, Ricardo Morán moved to the Bay Area in 2004 to attend UC Berkeley. While pursuing an undergraduate degree in Film Studies, he developed a skill set in media, communications, and web technologies. As a compliment to these skills, Ricardo previously managed a community driven, certified green cafe. Ricardo's neighborhood cafe experience helped him grow Oakland roots and solidified his love for the Bay Area. Outside of work, Ricardo is either riding a bicycle, rooting for the A's, or enjoying a cup of coffee with his sweetie.

Laura Nasca graduated from the University of California, Santa Cruz in 2004 with a Social Psychology and Politics degree, focused on the U.S. Prison System. After volunteering for Ella Baker Center in August 2007, we brought her on as the Campaign Coordinator in January 2008. We're happy that she joined Ella Baker Center, and is applying her education, experience and skills toward grassroots organizing and community empowerment. Laura is currently studying Western Herbalism and Traditional Tibetan Medicine. She hopes to one day teach and practice community medicine.

Kalani is very passionate about making change in the world. A native of San Francisco, she moved to Oakland when she was 8. She was introduced to Ella Baker Center by her uncle and learned more about it through her high school friends who participate in Ella Baker Center's Silence the Violence campaign. She knew then that she'd like to get involved and started as a volunteer answering the phones. Kalani hopes to one day run an organization helping young mothers. When she's not holding Ella Baker Center together, she enjoys participating in plays and fashion shows and spending time with her children, Morin and Leialoha.

Glenn Backes is an independent researcher and public policy consultant, specializing in public health and criminal justice policies. In addition to extensive work in the California State Capitol, Glenn has worked on initiative campaigns to Fix 3 Strikes, and in opposition to the Runner Initiative, which would have spent billions more on prison building, and would have made more young people vulnerable to prosecution as adults Glenn was senior staff at the Drug Policy Alliance for eight years, leading their policy reform efforts in the California from 2000 until 2005. In his previous position as the Director of the Soros Foundation’s International Harm Reduction Development Program, Glenn helped establish drug treatment and HIV prevention projects throughout Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union. He previously worked for five years as a counselor and outreach worker at the Streetwork Project in New York City, where he helped homeless youth develop plans to rebuild their lives. Glenn has consulted for the World Bank, Unicef and the United Nations Programme on AIDS. Mr. Backes holds Masters Degrees in Social Work and Public Health from the University of North Carolina, and lives in Sacramento with his wife and two daughters.

Sandra first joined the Packard Foundation from 2002 to 2004 and was a senior editor/policy analyst for The Future of Children. Sandra rejoined the Foundation in 2005 as program officer and is responsible for managing and monitoring the directed grantmaking funds, which include the President’s and Special Opportunities funds. She also conducts research and works on special projects for President and CEO Carol Larson.

Prior to joining the Foundation, Sandra was an assistant professor of criminology and government and politics at the University of Maryland, College Park. She also served as interim associate director for the Institute for Research on Women and Gender at Stanford University.

Sandra holds a bachelor’s degree in political science from San Jose State University and an M.A. and Ph.D. in political science from U.C. Berkeley. She was a doctoral fellow at Rand Corporation, testified before the U.S. Civil Rights Commission on police accountability, and coedited Racial and Ethnic Politics in California Vol. II, 1999; and was issue editor for Children, Families, and Foster Care, The Future of Children 2004. Sandra is also a child welfare mediator with the Consortium for Children.

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.

Holly was named by PR News as a "Young PR Star" recognized as a PR leader and creative practitioner in the industry. Her work was recently honored by the Council on Foundations with a Gold Award for Public Policy Communications. She was Editor of Loud and Clear in an Election Year, a guidebook created to help nonprofits convey their messages in the crowded election environment.

Her experience includes work as Vice President of Spitfire Strategies, where she created communications programs for grantees of the nation's largest foundations, including the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, and the David and Lucile Packard Foundation.

She was Executive Director of the Communications Leadership Institute, which helps nonprofits use high-impact communications to achieve social change. In addition to guiding CLI's key programs, she led flagship training retreats for nonprofit leaders and grantmakers. Holly also served as Director of the SPIN Project, assisting hundreds of grassroots groups with strategic communications resources. She launched the successful SPIN Academy and created much of the SPIN Project's training curriculum and online tools.

Shiree Teng has worked in the social sector for 30 years as a social and racial justice champion – as a front line organizer, network facilitator, capacity builder, grantmaker, and evaluator/learning partner. Shiree brings to her work a lifelong commitment to social change and a belief in the potential of groups of people coming together to create powerful solutions to entrenched social issues. 

Shiree has an intimate understanding of the issues and challenges related to working in communities of color and dynamics of class, culture and power. Having spent her life in the social sector, Shiree comes to the work from the perspective of building capacity. For the past twelve years, Shiree has worked as a Program Officer and Consultant to Packard Foundation’s Organizational Effectiveness program. Shiree leads the statewide technical assistance team of La Piana Associates to support The California Endowment’s Healthy Returns Initiative. She is a member of the national consultant pool for the French American Charitable Trust’s Management Assistance Program. She has worked on the evaluation and capacity building teams for the Hewlett Foundation’s Neighborhood Improvement Initiative, and is the lead evaluator for NCDI’s five-year capacity building effort funded by the W.K. Kellogg Foundation in Benton Harbor, Michigan and in the Mid-South Delta region. Shiree leads by serving, using a culturally-based approach and relying on core competencies of strategic thinking, listening and synthesizing, connecting, and mobilizing action.