#12DaysToShowUp Day 11: Invest in Communities and Policy Change to Address Mass Incarceration

We have become all too familiar with hearing the reports of police brutality against people of color, the statistics of prisons disproportionately crowded with Black and Brown individuals, and the stories of families torn apart by extreme sentencing policies. Our nation’s history of racism is inextricably linked to our prison system and it is critical that we take real steps nowto dismantle this system and reallocate resources to our communities.

---

Across the country, and here in the Bay Area, people are organizing to oppose the racial injustices of prison systems and to create opportunities for community reinvestment and policy change to address this massive civil rights issue.
Named after the revolutionary civil rights activist, the Ella Baker Center for Human Rights advocates for communities of Black, Brown and low-income people impacted by state violence and mass criminalization. They engage those that have been wronged by the system and empower them to be leaders in advocacy and policy change in an effort to redirect resources away from policing and prisons and toward restorative programs to support community healing and growth.
For more than 20 years, the Ella Baker Center has inspired collective action to enact local and national change, including:

• Closing 5 youth prisons in California
• Helping secure nearly half a billion dollars of investments in green jobs nationally
• Advocating for 50% of Alameda County public safety funding to be redirected from prisons into rehabilitation services
• Building a collaborative restorative justice and employment space called Restore Oakland, a model center for community safety.

SURJ stands in solidarity with the critical work of the Ella Baker Center for Human Rights. We’ve supported their state and county policy campaigns to reduce extreme sentencing and other criminal justice reforms through lobbying, fundraising, attending committee hearings, participating in calling campaigns, sending in letters of support, and more. SURJ and the Ella Baker Center are able to advance their missions of racial justice because of the support of engaged, dedicated donors like you.
As part of our #12DaysToShowUp campaign, we ask you to donate today.75% of all funds raised will go to local Black, Indigenous, and People of Color led organizations like the Ella Baker Center for Human Rights. The remaining 25% will be sent to under-resourced rural SURJ chapters mobilizing white people throughout the U.S. to support racial justice causes. Every dollar makes a difference. Click here to donate now.