CCR initiated the Ella Baker Student Program in the spring of 1987 following the death of Ella Baker, a hero of the civil rights movement, in order to provide students with legal and other training and a background in movements for social change.
Students work with teams of lawyers on various legal issues, doing legal / factual research and writing on active CCR cases. They also work with the Education and Outreach Department on CCR’s various campaigns and produce documents for public distribution. Ella Baker interns attend regular seminars by scholars, activists, and clients on such subjects as: civil rights and racial/economic justice; government misconduct; international human rights; and other progressive movements in general. In addition to seminars with prominent litigators and activists, students will have the opportunity to see films and plays about movements for social change.
Students may apply for the summer session and/or for part- or full-time internships throughout the school year. However, seminars and films are offered only in the summer. Applications for term-time internships and externships are received on a rolling basis. For more information, please contact An-Tuan Williams at ellabaker2009@ccr-ny.org. Application instructions for the summer program are detailed below.
For the summer program, CCR strongly recommends that students commit to and take advantage of the internship’s full 10 weeks program. We will make considerations for split-summer arrangements on a case by case basis.
Why Is The Internship Named After Ella Baker?
Ella Baker devoted her adult life to social change. During the Depression she organized consumer cooperatives and wrote, taught, and lectured on consumer affairs for the Federal Works Progress Administration. In the 1940’s she traveled throughout the South, often alone in dangerous segregated areas, organizing chapters of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. She was an early executive director of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, led by the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Many consider her greatest influence to be with the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) by students who had led the sit-in movement and her insistence that it be autonomous. SNCC was later to spearhead the voting rights movement in the South and had the seeds within it of the anti-war and women’s movement.
Ella Baker strongly believed that community people and young people could make significant changes in their lives. She said, "My theory is, strong people don’t need strong leaders." She seldom appeared on television or in the news stories, explaining that, "The kind of role that I tried to play was to pick up pieces or put together pieces out of which I hoped organization might come." As an advisor to SNCC members who were generations younger, she rarely intervened, although her advice was often sought. She said, "Most of the youngsters had been trained to believe in or to follow adults if they could. I felt they ought to have a chance to learn to think things through and to make decisions."
The Center for Constitutional Rights is proud to honor her life and memory with the Ella Baker Summer Internship Program. It is our hope that many young people will be inspired to follow in her footsteps.
Application Instructions
Application Materials Cover letter: please explain why you would like to work for social change in general and for CCR in particular, any experience you might have in community organizing or in movements for social change, and your interests and skills.
Timeline For 2L’s
• November 14th- All 2Ls should send an electronic version of application materials to ellabaker2009@ccr-ny.org by this date.
• November 17th - December 5th- Interviews for 2Ls will be held.
• December 12th- Final decisions for 2L candidates will be made by this date.
Timeline For 1L’s
• January 16th- All 1L applicants should send an electronic version of application materials to ellabaker2009@ccr-ny.org by this date.
• January 26th - February 6th- Interviews for 1Ls will be held. Please note that the bulk of available internships will be given to 2L students. We will conduct very limited interviews of 1L candidates.
• February 13th- Final decisions for 1L applicants will be made by this date.
Please note the above schedule when considering offers from other organizations. While we may consider requests for an expedited decision on a case by case basis, we expect all students to respect the above timeline.
Funding
CCR annually offers two funded fellowships for law students under the Ella Baker Summer Internship Program:
The Isabel and Alger Hiss Government Misconduct Internship has been made possible through the generous gift of the Estate of Isabel Johnson Hiss. Each summer CCR awards up to $3,500 in stipends to a second year law student with a strong commitment to public interest law, and a demonstrated interest in working on CCR’s broad ranging government misconduct docket.
The Millspaugh Catlin International Human Rights Internship has been made possible through the generous gift of the Millspaugh Catlin Family Foundation, honoring the memory of Herman Copelon. Each summer CCR awards up to $3,500 in stipends to a second year law student with demonstrated interest and commitment to advancing international human rights issues. The candidate selected will work on cases under CCR’s international human rights/corporate accountability docket. Preference is given to CUNY law students.
In addition to the above fellowships, other funding may be available for law students who are unable to secure funding on their own. CCR strongly advises applicants to make every effort to secure their own funding. The amount of money available for financial aid is very limited and varies from year to year. CCR is committed to recruiting a diverse class of Ella Bakers from all backgrounds and can provide funds when necessary.
For more information about CCR, please see our website: http://www.ccrjustice.org.
If you have any questions please contact An-Tuan Williams, Education and Outreach Assistant, at:
Center for Constitutional Rights
666 Broadway, 7th Floor
New York, NY 10012
Phone: 212-614-6466
Fax (212)614-6422
E-mail:awilliams@ccrjustice.org
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