Attend the official book launch of We Keep Us Safe: Building Secure, Just, and Inclusive Communities, written by Zach W Norris.

In his first book, Norris shares that we, the community, keep each other safe. For 200 years, fear has been used to distract and divide our communities through discrimination and punishment. Yet, despite the United States’ long-standing tradition of aggressive policing and imprisonment, we still don’t feel safe. It’s clear that our current approaches to justice aren’t working. Community leader and lawyer Zach Norris lays out a radical way to shift the conversation about public safety away from fear and punishment toward growth and support systems for our families and communities. In this book, he offers stories and a framework to help understand and transform the policies and practices that perpetuate intergenerational trauma and community suffering.

Books will be available for sale and the author will be signing copies.

Co-sponsored by Youth First Initiative and Ella Baker Center

All proceeds from We Keep Us Safe sales benefit the Ella Baker Center for Human Rights.

Order your copy today.

Praise for We Keep Us Safe: Building Secure, Just, and Inclusive Communities

“Bright, talented, compassionate, strategic, and committed . . . Norris’s insights and story will be an enormously important contribution in the effort to advance human rights in this country.” - Bryan Stevenson, Author of Just Mercy

“We Keep Us Safe powerfully demonstrates that safety, freedom, and justice come from relationships, resources, and real accountability—not more punishment, police, and prisons.” - Michelle Alexander,
Author of The New Jim Crow

“Zach’s words are a must-read for anyone who cares about a more just and more compassionate future. He shows us the world that might be possible when we lead with empathy, when we humanize rather than criminalize each other, and when we seek restoration rather than retribution. And perhaps most importantly, he gives us hope that it’s a world in which we might one day live.” - Jennifer Siebel Newsom, First Partner of California, Filmmaker

About the Author

Zach Norris is the Executive Director of the Ella Baker Center for Human Rights and co-founder of Restore Oakland, a community advocacy and training center that will empower Bay Area community members to transform local economic and justice systems and make a safe and secure future possible for themselves and for their families. Zach is also a co-founder of Justice for Families, a national alliance of family-driven organizations working to end our nation’s youth incarceration epidemic.