We denounce latest charges against Stop Cop City/Defend the Atlanta Forest activists 

Atlanta’s power structure has escalated its crackdown on the courageous activists opposing construction of Cop City. With an indictment last week, Georgia Attorney General Chris Carr charged 61 activists with violating the state’s Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations (RICO) law. Georgia is claiming that the diverse collection of activists, mutual aid groups, bail funds, and movements critical of unchecked policing are engaged in a criminal conspiracy. The charges reflect tactics used to criminalize dissent and social justice activism since the first Red Scare – one of the most repressive eras in U.S. history.

Another target of the indictment is mutual aid. For activists, mutual aid is an essential way to secure and provide for basic needs; for the state of Georgia, it is evidence of a conspiracy. The indictment is a direct attack on the lifeblood of social movements: solidarity. 

Like Cop City itself, the indictment is born of backlash, white supremacy’s response to Black-led protests. Indeed, the indictment backdates the anti-Cop City effort to the 2020 protests, which happened nearly a year before plans for the police training compound were even announced. 

The defiant struggle against Cop City carries on, and we are proud to support it.

Read the full statement on our website here. Visit our Stop Cop City resource page here.

Artwork by Dio Cramer via Justseeds

WATCH: Sadaf Doost on Democracy Now!  

Watch Sadaf Doost, our attorney and Bertha Justice fellow discussing our recent lawsuit seeking to compel the Pentagon, Department of State, and Department of Homeland Security to provide information on the thousands of Afghan evacuees arbitrarily detained in third countries and the U.S.’s role in such detention. Watch the interview on Democracy Now!'s website.

“These individuals include human rights activists who had to flee Afghanistan because the Taliban is now searching for [them]. This includes journalists, some who worked with news organizations based out here in the U.S. or elsewhere. It includes women’s rights activists and just lawyers, prosecutors, judges, as well as your everyday Afghan civilians, who had to flee because of the compounding humanitarian and human rights crisis in Afghanistan.” —Sadaf Doost on Democracy Now!

The lawsuit was brought under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), and cites the reports of brutal treatment at facilities, which are largely coordinated, facilitated, or under the control of the U.S. government. Learn more about the lawsuit on our website.

READ: Board member Makani Themba’s piece in The Nation on the Jackson Water Crisis 

We encourage you to read this article, “A Year Later, the Water Crisis in Jackson Has Gone From Acute to Chronic” by our board member, Makani Themba who is Chief Strategist at Higher Ground Change Strategies in Jackson. She writes:

[P]eople ask me about last year’s water crisis. What they mostly want to know is if the failing infrastructure that left more than 150,000 people without water for weeks is fixed yet.

Unfortunately, the answer is no. Not only has the water crisis not been “fixed”; Jackson appears to be stuck on the hell train to privatization. Without a major intervention, Jackson will be joining Detroit, Flint, and Benton Harbor as yet another Black-majority city stripped of the authority to manage its own resources

Yet Jackson residents persevere, showing up for hearings despite short notice and inconvenient times, because we know that the fate of our water system should not be in the hands of only two people.

Read the full article on The Nation’s website here. And read about our work with Makani on the Jackson Water Crisis on our website here.

(Photo credit Rogelio V. Solis - AP Photo)

We’re looking for summer 2024 Ella Baker interns!  

In 1987, we created the Ella Baker Summer Internship Program to honor the legacy of Ella Baker, a hero of the civil rights movement, and to train the next generation of social justice lawyers. Through our program, interns gain practical litigation experience and sharpen their theoretical understanding of the relationship between social change, organizing, and lawyering. Ella Baker Interns also become connected to a global community of social justice law students and lawyers through our Ella Baker Alumni Network.

We’ve now started our search for the 2024 cohort of Ella Baker interns. For more information, and to apply, head to the application page. The deadline is October 7, 2023 at 12:00 pm PST.