ELLA BAKER
Born December 13, 1903, in Norfolk, VA; died December 13, 1986, in New York City;.
Education: Shaw University, B.A., 1927
Born in Norfolk, Virginia, on December 13, 1903, daughter of Blake (a ferryboat waiter) and Georgianna (a teacher) Baker Ella Baker was one of the leading figures in the civil rights movement of the 1950s and 1960s. She grew up in rural North Carolina. Ella was close to her grandmother. Her grandmother told Baker many stories about her life as a slave which including a whipping she had received at the hands of her owner.
Ella was an eceptional student in her studies and graduate from all academic facilities in her early childhood to teen years and graduated. She enrolld into Shaw University located in Raleigh, North Carolina. She was the class valedictorian and obtained her B.A 1927 from the Universitiy. Baker moved north to New York City. There she worked a number of jobs while trying to make ends meet. Baker helped start the Young Negroes’ Cooperative League, which allowed its members to pool their funds to get better deals on goods and services.
Around 1940, Baker became a field secretary for the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. She traveled extensively, raising funds and recruiting new members to the organization. In 1946, Baker became the NAACP’s national director of branches. She took over care for her niece, Jackie Brockington, a few years later, which Baker to resigned from her NAACP post. She felt her position required too much travel. Staying in New York, Baker worked for a number of local organizations, including the New York Urban League. She also helped out at the New York chapter of the NAACP.In 1957, Baker joined the Southern Christian Leadership Conference as its executive director at the request of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. The SCLC was a civil rights group created by African American ministers and community leaders. During her time with the SCLC, Baker set up the event that led to the creation of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee in 1960. She offered her support and counsel to this organization of student activists.
While she left the SCLC in 1960, Baker remained active in the SNCC for many years. She helped them form the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party in 1964 as an alternative to the state’s Democratic Party, which held segregationist views. The MFDP even tried to get their delegates to serve as replacements for the Mississippi delegates at the National Democratic Convention in Atlantic City, New Jersey that same year. While they were unsuccessful in this effort, the MFDP’s actions brought a lot of attention to their cause.
Mrs. Baker continued to fight for social justice and equality for the rest of her life. With her many years of experience as a protester and organizer, she gave her wise counsel to numerous organizations and causes, including the Third World Women’s Coordinating Committee and the Puerto Rican Solidarity Committee. Her craft was being able to get and organize people to work together for social change. Gospel singer and historian Bernice Johnson Reagon wrote a song about her called “Ella’s Song,” which celebrates her role as “Fundi” to the American civil rights movement: “That which touches me most is that I had the chance to work with people / Passing on to others that which was passed on to me.”
Mrs.Baker passed away on December 13, 1986 on her eighty-third birthday in New York. Before her death, she was asked what had kept her going in her lifelong struggle against injustice. AS QUOTED IN MOVING THE MOUNTAIN, Baker answered in the spirit of a “FUNDI”: “I don’t claim to have a corner on an answer, but I believe that the struggle is eternal. Somebody else carries on.”
Her life and accomplishments were chronicled in the 1981 documentary Fundi: The Story of Ella Baker. “Fundi” was her nickname, which comes from a Swahili word that means a person who passes down a craft to the next generation. Ella attended Shaw University in Raleigh, North Carolina, and graduated with valedictorian honors.[8] Decades later, she returned to Shaw to help found SNCC.
ELLA BAKER WAS A DRIVING FORCE THAT REINFORCED WHAT THE CIVIL RIGHTS WAS ALL ABOUT. She is and will always be remembered as a mother of the movement. An iconic legacy that helped to bridge the gaps and create the freedom we all have today.
Civil Rights accomplishments in calendar year order:
American West Indian News, editorial staff member, 1929–30; Negro National News, office manager and editorial assistant, 1932; Young Negroes’ Cooperative League, national director, c 1932–38; Works Progress Administration (WPA), consumer education project teacher, 1936–38; National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), assistant field secretary, 1938–42, national field secretary and director of branches, 1942–46, president of New York City branch, 1954–56; American Cancer Society, Harlem branch, founder and staff member, 1947–54; Montgomery bus boycott adviser, 1955–56; In Friendship, cofounder, 1956; Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC), Atlanta, GA, associate director, 1958–59, interim director, 1959–60; Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), cofounder and adviser, beginning in 1960; Young women’s Christian Association (YWCA), Atlanta, human relations consultant, 1960–63; Southern Conference Educational Fund (SCEF), staff member, 1963–65, adviser, beginning in 1965; Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party (MFDP), keynote speaker at convention in Jackson, MS, Washington office organizer, and adviser, all beginning in 1964; Mass Party Organizing Committee, vice-chair, beginning in 1972; adviser to numerous liberation and human rights groups, including the African National Congress and the Puerto Rican Solidarity Committee, 1972–86.
Ella Baker died in her sleep on her 83rd birthday on December 13, 1986.
Source Library of Congress
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