The Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR) is dedicated to advancing and protecting the rights guaranteed by the United States Constitution and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Founded in 1966 by lawyers who represented civil rights movements in the American South, the CCR is a nonprofit legal and educational organization committed to the creative use of law as a positive force for social change.
Since its founding, the CCR has worked alongside at-risk communities to fight for justice and liberation through litigation, advocacy, and strategic communications. It has confronted systems of oppressive power, including structural racism, gender oppression, economic inequality, and abuses of governmental power.
All too often, the law ends up reinforcing structures that violate fundamental rights and prevent people from living with dignity. For this reason, the CCR advances bold and creative legal strategies to confront the deepest forms of oppression and push for the law to respond to the demands of justice. Its advocacy work complements litigation, strengthening collective power where it is most needed: in historically marginalized communities. Through strategic communications, it also seeks to transform dominant narratives that normalize rights violations and broaden public support for these struggles.
Its approach is comprehensive, courageous, and persistent. By working in alliance with communities fighting for social justice and centering their processes of resistance and liberation, the CCR contributes to transforming systems, policies, and public narratives.
