The New Green Economy

The Ella Baker Center for Human Rights focuses its efforts on urban America and works for justice, peace, and opportunity where poverty, discrimination, and incarceration have hit Americans the hardest. Founded in 1996 by Van Jones, the organization is named for Ella Josephine Baker, who spent more than fifty years of her life working to advance civil rights and human rights both at the national and international levels. Since its humble beginnings in 1996, Ella Baker Center has grown to become one of the nation’s foremost advocates for Americans living in desperate inner-city conditions.

The Ella Baker Center has created four campaigns aimed at renewing urban life all across America: Books Not Bars, Silence the Violence, Soul of the City, and Green-Collar Jobs. The latter campaign recognizes the enormous economic potential behind the new green economy and aims to tap into this potential in order to bring hope and change to inner-cities across the nation. The Green-Collar Jobs Campaign is currently working to bring new green job opportunities to some of the most neglected and at-risk members of the Oakland, CA community. An important component of the campaign is a local partnership called The Oakland Apollo Alliance, which is placing the needs of both the environment and the city’s underprivileged first by making jobs available that will revitalize the local economy as well as the environment.

Another component of the campaign is community outreach. The Green-Collar Jobs Campaign has designed a teaching curriculum for classroom settings to generate student interest in this new field of work. The campaign’s curriculum is designed to comply with California's educational content standards. The five-part series is available for download and classroom use, including teacher’s guides and resources at the Ella Baker Center website.

The Green-Collar Jobs Campaign has also established The Oakland Green Jobs Corps, which provides green-collar job applicants with the skills and resources they need in order to successfully integrate themselves into the green economy. The Green Job Corps states its goals are to “help young adults, restore the environment, support green businesses, [and] advance Oakland’s green economic leadership.” ¹ The program recently received $250,000 in city funding to help create new green job opportunities, and is rallying public support to help persuade elected officials to increase future funding in this sector.

Although the Ella Baker Center’s Green-Collar Job Campaign has taken hold in Oakland, California, it is paving the way for a new green economy in urban centers all across the nation.  Oakland was named one of America's top-ten greenest cities by National Geographic's the Green Guide. For more information on the campaign, visit the Ella Baker Center’s website at www.ellabakercenter.org.