The Beyond the Bars Fellowship welcomes the 10th cohort of fellows this month!
This year, we are excited to welcome the 10th cohort of our Beyond the Bars fellowship!
After coming home from prison, two of our founders, Kathy Boudin and Cheryl Wilkins, and later supported by Columbia professor Geraldine Downey, started The Center for Justice, originally called the The Criminal Justice Initiative (CJI). The vision of CJI was to focus on the impact of incarceration on children, families, and communities, encouraging students and faculty to focus on issues of incarceration and reentry through academic work, professional training, research, and policy formulation while supporting concrete efforts serving communities most affected by mass incarceration. The hope was to make the relationship between the community and the students and faculty of Columbia University a resource for social justice, providing a model of university and community collaboration on a critical social issue. The work of the Initiative was to occur in three arenas: within the School of Social Work; across the different schools and disciplines throughout Columbia University; and between the academic institutions and the community.
Out of this vision and the vision of a Columbia School of Social Work student, Wakumi Douglas, came the annual Beyond the Bars Conference and subsequently, the Beyond the Bars Fellowship.
During the nine-month fellowship, students and directly impacted community members learn and grow together in their understanding of the history of mass incarceration and in their capacity to work collaboratively to end criminalization and build a more just and safe world. As the fellowship has grown, many students have also been impacted by incarceration and many directly impacted people have become students at Columbia. For many fellows, the fellowship was their first contact with Columbia and opened doors for more involvement in higher education.
The connections made amongst the fellows were very profound. These are truly connections and knowledge that will last a lifetime.
In the beginning of the fellowship, and in addition to weekly leadership development meetings where fellows would learn from seasoned activists and organizers, fellows would support the planning and implementation of our annual Beyond the Bars Conference. In recent years, we have pivoted the structure of the fellowship, and fellows now put their leadership development training into action. Through solidarity projects, fellows collaborate with local organizations advocating for people impacted by carceral systems to envision and implement solidarity projects that will support the organization’s work. These projects have included fundraising events, hosting restorative justice circles, planning and implementing social media campaigns to raise awareness, etc. Fellows have worked with organizations like H.O.L.L.A, the Release Aging People in Prison Campaign, JMac for Families, Black Alliance for Just Immigration, and more.
Through the solidarity project, I learned about the ways that incarceration impacts Black immigrants specifically, in addition to how people and communities can organize against the criminalization of immigration.
We are so proud of all of the incredible activists, organizers, and advocates who have gone through the fellowship and look forward to the next ten years and beyond of training up leaders to end mass incarceration and perpetual punishment.
And welcome to our 10th cohort!
