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Ella Josephine Baker
Date of birth: December 13, 1903 (1903-12-13)
Place of birth: Norfolk, Virginia, USA
Date of death: December 13, 1986 (aged 83)
Place of death: New York City, New York, USA
Movement: American Civil Rights Movement
Major organizations: NAACP (1938-1953)
SCLC (1957-1960)
SNCC (1960-1962)

Ella Josephine Baker (December 13, 1903 - December 13, 1986) was a leading African American civil rights and human rights activist beginning in the 1930s. Events 1294 - Saint Celestine V abdicates the papacy after only five months Celestine hoped to return to his previous life Year 1903 ( MCMIII) was a Common year starting on Thursday (link will display calendar of the Gregorian calendar or a Common year starting Norfolk is an Independent city in the Commonwealth of Virginia in the United States The United States of America —commonly referred to as the Events 1294 - Saint Celestine V abdicates the papacy after only five months Celestine hoped to return to his previous life Year 1986 ( MCMLXXXVI) was a Common year starting on Wednesday (link displays 1986 Gregorian calendar) The City of New York The United States of America —commonly referred to as the The American Civil Rights Movement (1955–1968 refers to the reform movements in the United States aimed at abolishing racial discrimination against African The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, usually abbreviated as NAACP, is one of the oldest and most influential Civil rights organizations Year 1938 ( MCMXXXVIII) was a Common year starting on Saturday (link will display the full calendar of the Gregorian calendar. Year 1953 ( MCMLIII) was a Common year starting on Thursday (link will display full calendar of the Gregorian calendar. Year 1957 ( MCMLVII) was a Common year starting on Tuesday (link displays the 1957 Gregorian calendar) Year 1960 ( MCMLX) was a Leap year starting on Friday (link will display full calendar of the Gregorian calendar. The Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (or SNCC, pronounced "snick" was one of the principal organizations of the American Civil Rights Movement Year 1960 ( MCMLX) was a Leap year starting on Friday (link will display full calendar of the Gregorian calendar. Year 1962 ( MCMLXII) was a Common year starting on Monday (the link is to a full 1962 calendar of the Gregorian calendar. Events 1294 - Saint Celestine V abdicates the papacy after only five months Celestine hoped to return to his previous life Year 1903 ( MCMIII) was a Common year starting on Thursday (link will display calendar of the Gregorian calendar or a Common year starting Events 1294 - Saint Celestine V abdicates the papacy after only five months Celestine hoped to return to his previous life Year 1986 ( MCMLXXXVI) was a Common year starting on Wednesday (link displays 1986 Gregorian calendar) African Americans or Black Americans are citizens or residents of the United States who have origins in any of the black populations of Africa Year 1930 ( MCMXXX) was a Common year starting on Wednesday (link will display 1930 calendar of the Gregorian calendar. She was a behind-the-scenes activist whose career spanned over five decades. She worked alongside some of the most famous civil rights leaders of the twentieth century, including: W.E.B. DuBois, Thurgood Marshall, A. Philip Randolph, and Martin Luther King Jr.

Contents

Early life and career

Baker was born in Norfolk, Virginia and raised by Georgiana and Blake Baker. William Edward Burghardt Du Bois (duːˈbɔɪz ( February 23, 1868 August 27, 1963) was an American Civil rights activist Thurgood Marshall ( July 2, 1908 – January 24, 1993) was an American Jurist and the first African American Asa Philip Randolph ( April 15 1889 &ndash May 16 1979) was a prominent twentieth century African-American civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr ( January 15, 1929 April 4, 1968) was an American clergyman, Activist and prominent leader When she was eight, her family moved to her mother's hometown of Littleton in rural North Carolina. North Carolina ( is a state located on the Atlantic Seaboard in the southeastern United States As a girl, Baker listened to her grandmother tell stories about slave revolts. As a slave, her grandmother had been whipped for refusing to marry a man chosen for her by the slave owner. Baker attended Shaw University in Raleigh, North Carolina, graduating as class valedictorian in 1927 at the age of 24. Shaw University is a private historically black university located in Raleigh North Carolina, USA with its College of Adult Professional Education Raleigh (pronounced rah-lee) is the Capital of the State of North Carolina and the county seat of Wake County, USA Year 1927 ( MCMXXVII) was a Common year starting on Saturday (link will display full calendar of the Gregorian calendar. As a student she challenged school policies that she thought were unfair. After graduating, she moved to New York City. The City of New York [1] During 1929 - 1930 she was an editorial staff member of the American West Indian News, going on to take the position of editorial assistant at the Negro National News. Year 1929 ( MCMXXIX) was a Common year starting on Tuesday (link will display the full calendar of the Gregorian calendar. Year 1930 ( MCMXXX) was a Common year starting on Wednesday (link will display 1930 calendar of the Gregorian calendar. In 1930 George Schuyler, then a black journalist and anarchist (and later an arch-conservative), founded the Young Negroes' Cooperative League (YNCL), which sought to develop black economic power through collective planning. Having befriended Schuyler, Baker joined in 1931 and soon became the group’s national director. [2]

She also worked for the Worker's Education Project of the Works Progress Administration, where she taught courses in consumer education, labor history and African history. The Works Progress Administration (renamed in 1939 the Work Projects Administration; WPA) was the largest New Deal agency employing millions of people Baker immersed herself in the cultural and political milieu of Harlem in the 1930s. Harlem is a neighborhood in the New York City borough of Manhattan, long known as a major African American cultural and business center She protested Italy's invasion of Ethiopia and supported the campaign to free the Scottsboro defendants, a group of young black men wrongfully accused of rape in Alabama. She also founded the Negro History Club at the Harlem Library and regularly attended lectures and meetings at the YWCA. She befriended the future scholar and activist, John Henrik Clark and the future writer and civil rights lawyer, Pauli Murray, and many others who would become lifelong friends. The Reverend Dr Anna Pauline (Pauli Murray ( November 20, 1910 – July 1, 1985) was an American [3]

Work with prominent organizations

NAACP (1938-1953)

In 1938 she began her long association with the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP). Year 1938 ( MCMXXXVIII) was a Common year starting on Saturday (link will display the full calendar of the Gregorian calendar. The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, usually abbreviated as NAACP, is one of the oldest and most influential Civil rights organizations Baker was hired in 1941 as a secretary. Year 1941 ( MCMXLI) was a Common year starting on Wednesday (the link will display 1941 calendar of the Gregorian calendar. She traveled widely, especially in the South, recruiting members, raising money, and organizing local campaigns. She was named director of branches in 1943,[4] making her the highest ranking woman in the organization. Year 1943 ( MCMXLIII) was a Common year starting on Friday (the link will display full 1943 calendar of the Gregorian calendar. She was an outspoken woman with a strong belief in egalitarian ideals. She pushed the organization to decentralize its leadership structure and to aid its membership in more activist campaigns on the local level. She especially stressed the importance of young people and women in the organization. Baker formed a network of people in the south who would go on to be important for the fight for civil rights. Whereas some organizers tended to talk down to rural southerners, Baker’s ability to treat everyone with respect helped her in her recruiting. Baker fought to make the NAACP more democratic and in tune with the needs of the people. She tried to find a balance between voicing her concerns and maintaining a unified front. When the opportunity arose in 1946 to return to New York City to care for her niece, she left her position with the national association, but remained a volunteer. Year 1946 ( MCMXLVI) was a Common year starting on Tuesday (link will display full 1946 calendar of the Gregorian calendar. She soon joined the New York branch of the NAACP to work on school desegregation and police brutality issues, and became its president in 1952. Year 1952 ( MCMLII) was a Leap year starting on Tuesday (link will display full calendar of the Gregorian calendar. [5] She resigned in 1953 to run unsuccessfully for the New York City Council on the Liberal Party ticket. Year 1953 ( MCMLIII) was a Common year starting on Thursday (link will display full calendar of the Gregorian calendar. The New York City Council is the lawmaking body of the City of New York. [6]

Southern Christian Leadership Conference (1957-1960)

In January 1957, Baker went to Atlanta, Georgia to attend a conference aimed at developing a new regional organization to build on the success of the Montgomery Bus Boycott. Year 1957 ( MCMLVII) was a Common year starting on Tuesday (link displays the 1957 Gregorian calendar) The Montgomery Bus Boycott was a political and social protest campaign started in 1955 in Montgomery Alabama, intended to oppose After a second conference in February, the Southern Christian Leadership Conference was formed. The Southern Christian Leadership Conference ( SCLC) is an American Civil rights organization The conference’s first project was the Crusade for Citizenship, a voter registration campaign. Voter registration is the requirement in some democracies for Citizens and residents to check in with some central registry specifically for the purpose of being allowed Baker was hired as the first staffperson for the new organization. Along with Bayard Rustin, one of her close allies, she was co-organizer of the 1957 Prayer Pilgrimage which brought thousands of activists to Washington D. Rustin redirects here for the unrelated film see Rustin (film Bayard Rustin ( March 17, 1912 – August 24 C. Because she was not a man or a minister, she was not seriously considered for the post of executive director, but she worked with the SCLC ministers to hire Reverend John Tilley in that capacity. John Vincent Tilley ( June 13 1941 &mdash December 18 2005) was a British Labour Party (UK politician Baker worked closely with southern civil rights activists in Georgia, Alabama and Mississippi and was highly respected for her organizing abilities. She helped initiate voter registration campaigns and identify other local grievances. After Tilley resigned, she remained in Atlanta for two and a half years as interim executive director of the SCLC until the post was taken up by Wyatt Tee Walker in April 1960. Wyatt Tee Walker (born August 16, 1929) is a United States black Civil rights leader Year 1960 ( MCMLX) was a Leap year starting on Friday (link will display full calendar of the Gregorian calendar. [7]

Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (1960-1962)

That same year, on the heels of regional desegregation sit-ins led by black college students, Baker persuaded the SCLC to invite southern university students to the Southwide Youth Leadership Conference at Shaw University on Easter weekend. At this meeting the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) was formed. The Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (or SNCC, pronounced "snick" was one of the principal organizations of the American Civil Rights Movement Following the conference Baker resigned from the SCLC and began a long and intimate relationship with SNCC. Along with Howard Zinn, Baker was one of SNCC's highly revered adult advisors. Howard Zinn (born August 24 1922 is an American Historian, political scientist, social critic, activist and Playwright, best known It was with Baker’s help that SNCC (along with Congress of Racial Equality) coordinated the region-wide freedom rides of 1961 and began to work closely with black sharecroppers and others throughout the South. Freedom Rider is also a song by Traffic and later Rascal Flatts Civil Rights activists called Freedom Riders rode in interstate buses Ella Baker insisted that "strong people don't need strong leaders," and criticized the notion of a single charismatic leader at the helm of movements for social change. She also argued that "people under the heel," referring to the most oppressed sectors of any community, "had to be the ones to decide what action they were going to take to get (out) from under their oppression. " She was a teacher and mentor to the young people of SNCC, highly influencing the thinking of such important figures as Julian Bond, Diane Nash, Stokely Carmichael, Curtis Muhammad, Bob Moses, and Bernice Johnson Reagon, who wrote a song in Baker's honor, called "Ella's Song. Horace Julian Bonds (born January 14 1940) is an American leader of the American Civil Rights Movement. Diane Judith Nash (born May 15 1938 in Chicago) was a leader of the Nashville Student Movement a founder of the now defunct SNCC, and a key Stokely Standiford Churchill Carmichael ( June 29, 1941 November 15, 1998) also known as Kwame Ture, was a Trinidadian Robert Parris Moses (born Harlem, New York, January 23, 1935, usually known as Bob Moses) is an American Harvard Dr Bernice Johnson Reagon (born October 4, 1942) is a singer composer scholar and social activist, who founded the A cappella " Through SNCC, Baker’s ideas of group-centered leadership and the need for radical democratic social change spread throughout the student movements of the 1960s. Her ideas influenced the philosophy of participatory democracy put forth by Students for a Democratic Society, the major antiwar group of the day. Students for a Democratic Society ( SDS) was historically a student activist movement in the United States that was one of the main iconic representations These ideas also influenced a wide range of radical and progressive groups that would form in the 60s and 70s. [8]

Southern Conference Education Fund (1962-1967)

From 1962 to 1967 Baker worked on the staff of the Southern Conference Education Fund (SCEF), which aimed to help black and white people work together for social justice. Year 1962 ( MCMLXII) was a Common year starting on Monday (the link is to a full 1962 calendar of the Gregorian calendar. Year 1967 ( MCMLXVII) was a Common year starting on Sunday (link will display full calendar of the 1967 Gregorian calendar. In SCEF Baker worked closely with her friend, longtime white anti-racist activist Anne Braden, who had been accused of being a communist during the 1950s by the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC). Anne McCarty Braden ( July 28, 1924 – March 6, 2006) was an American advocate of racial equality The House Committee on Un-American Activities ( HUAC or HCUA 1938–1975 was an investigative committee of the United States House of Representatives. Baker viewed socialism as a more humane alternative to capitalism but she had mixed feelings about communism. Still, she became a staunch defender of Anne Braden and her husband Carl and encouraged SNCC to reject red-baiting because she viewed it as divisive and unfair. During the 1960s Baker participated in a speaking tour and co-hosted several meetings on the importance of linking civil rights and civil liberties. [9]

In 1964 she helped organize the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party (MFDP) as an alternative to the all-white Mississippi Democratic Party. Year 1964 ( MCMLXIV) was a Leap year starting on Wednesday (link will display full calendar of the 1964 Gregorian calendar. The Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party (MFDP was an American Political party created in the state of Mississippi in 1964, during the She worked as the coordinator of the Washington office of the MFDP and accompanied a delegation of the MFDP to the National Democratic Party convention in Atlantic City, New Jersey in 1964. The group's aim was to challenge the national party to affirm the rights of African Americans to participate in party elections in the South. When MFDP delegates challenge the pro-segregationist, all-white official delegation, a major conflict ensued. The MFDP delegation was not seated, but their influence on the Democratic Party helped to elect many black leaders in Mississippi and forced a rule change to allow women and minorities to sit as delegates at the Democratic National Convention. The Democratic National Convention is a series of presidential nominating conventions held every four years since 1832 by the United States Democratic Party. [10]

Final years

That same year, Ella Baker returned to New York, where she continued her activism. New York ( is a state in the Mid-Atlantic and Northeastern regions of the United States and is the nation's third most populous She later collaborated with Arthur Kinoy and others to form the Mass Party Organizing Committee, a socialist organization. Arthur Kinoy ( September 20, 1920 - September 28, 2003) was a progressive Civil rights leader who went on to become a Law In 1972 she traveled the country in support of the "Free Angela" campaign demanding the release of Angela Davis. Year 1972 ( MCMLXXII) was a Leap year starting on Saturday (link will display full calendar of the Gregorian calendar. Angela Yvonne Davis (born January 26, 1944 in Birmingham Alabama) is an American Political activist and University She lent her voice to the Puerto Rican independence movement, spoke out against apartheid in South Africa and allied herself with a number of women's groups, including the Third World Women's Alliance and the Women's International League for Peace and Freedom. Puerto Rico (ˌpwertoˈriko officially the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico ("Estado Libre Asociado de Puerto Rico" {{lang-en|"Associated Free State of Puerto Rico"}} She remained an activist until her death in 1986. Year 1986 ( MCMLXXXVI) was a Common year starting on Wednesday (link displays 1986 Gregorian calendar) [11]

It is widely written that Ella Baker and Martin Luther King Jr. Martin Luther King Jr ( January 15, 1929 April 4, 1968) was an American clergyman, Activist and prominent leader , as well as other SCLC members, differed in opinion and philosophy. She once claimed that the "movement made Martin, and not Martin the movement. " Another speech she made, in which she urged activists to take control of the movement themselves, rather than rely on a leader with "heavy feet of clay," was widely interpreted as a denunciation of King.

Ella Baker was a notoriously private person. People close to her did not know that she was married for twenty years. [12] She left no personal diaries.

Quotations

Notes

  1. ^ Barbara Ransby, Ella Baker and the Black Freedom Movement: a Radical Democratic Vision (University of North Carolina Press, 2003), pp. 13-63.
  2. ^ Johnson, Cedric Kwesi. A Woman of Influence, In These Times. Retrieved February 18, 2008.
  3. ^ ŎRansby, Ella Baker, pp. 64-104.
  4. ^ Ransby, Ella Baker, p. 137.
  5. ^ Ransby, Ella Baker, p. 148.
  6. ^ Ransby, Ella Baker, pp. 105-158.
  7. ^ Ransby, Ella Baker, pp. 170-175.
  8. ^ Ransby, Ella Baker, pp. 239-272.
  9. ^ Ransby, Ella Baker, pp. 209-238, 273-328.
  10. ^ Ransby, Ella Baker, pp. 330-344.
  11. ^ Ransby, Ella Baker, pp. 344-374.
  12. ^ Ransby, Ella Baker, pp. 101-103.
  13. ^ Collins, Gail (September 22, 2007), “The Women Behind the Men”, The New York Times, <http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/22/opinion/22collins.html?em&ex=1190606400&en=a20518e610336452&ei=5087%0A> 

References

See also

External links

The American Civil Rights Movement (1955–1968 refers to the reform movements in the United States aimed at abolishing racial discrimination against African Campaigns The Ella Baker Center works toward its goal of " Justice in the system Opportunity in our cities and Peace on our streets" through
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