Ella Baker
- Hayeon Kwak
- Sep 25, 2023
- 3 min read
"In order to see where we are going, we not only must remember where we have been, but we must understand where we hvave been." - Ella Baker
DOB: December 13, 1903
Nationality: American
As a child, Ella Baker was known by others around her as a “whirlwind,” a name she would live up to. Raised in North Carolina, Baker’s grandmother Josephine Elizabeth “Bet” Ross and her stories about escaping slavery and the South ingrained awareness of social justice in Ella Baker from an early age. An activist spirit was also cultured early on, as her childhood was filled with her mother’s activism empowering women to act and bring social change in their communities.
Watching her mother work with others to bring change helped Ella develop an appreciation for the community. People are strongest when they have a strong system to depend on and raise, a fact she was able to realize earlier in life than others.
During her years as a student, Baker challenged policies she thought were unfair. After graduating from College at Shaw University in Raleigh, North Carolina as the class valedictorian, she moved to New York City in search of a job and full of dreams. However, she struggled to land jobs despite her high education and watched others struggle for good work and stability during the Great Depression as well.
The hardship she faced pushed her to the path of political activism, and what started as an outlet for her frustration would become her life’s work. She served first in the Young Negroes’ Cooperative League, an organisation aimed at helping black people gain economic independence. She also challenged unfair labour practices, investigating workplaces by posing as a domestic worker and exposing the inequality Black women workers faced.
In 1941, Baker started working as an assistant field secretary and later became the director of branches at the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP). As a secretary, she undertook dangerous work travelling throughout the Deep South recruiting new members and building a network for the NAACP, and as a director, she worked to bring the organization back into touch with the people they were serving rather than sponsors and membership numbers.
However, when she realized her efforts were futile, she resigned from her position in 1946.
Not long after, she was invited to help organize the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC), and she was hired as its grassroots organizer. Once again, she travelled through the Deep South recruiting members, raising money, and spreading awareness using the contacts she piled during her time with the NAACP.
Although Baker’s employers, the all-minister leadership team, praised her work, she sensed her position was temporary and her opinion was collectively overlooked. The men were not interested in inviting a woman to hold a permanent leadership position at their table. The SCLC frustrated Baker, and her unorthodox ideas were in turn considered too radical by the SCLC. For Baker, the big speeches and marches the SCLC held seemed meaningless and ineffective.
She believed in small and dedicated groups in which every member, including women, could be involved in both leadership and the action on the ground. Later, Baker was inspired by student-led-sit-ins in restaurants around the South and saw potential in this youthful energy. She called a meeting for student activists at Shaw University in Raleigh, and over 200 students attended.
The NAACP and SCLC expected Baker to recruit the youth to join them, but instead, she encouraged the students to take charge and organize on their own. The result was the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), a true student organization that embodied the definition of democracy and engagement she had wanted in the NAACP and SCLC. Baker served as an advisor to the students, asking them enlightening questions rather than giving answers and supporting them by nurturing their independence rather than playing leader.
Although the SNCC moved into the new popular ideas of Black Power and rejection of white allies and eventually dissolved, Baker continued to stay politically active and lent her voice to various social justice causes until her death on December 13, 1986.
Ella Baker: Making the Struggle Every Day
Written by Hayeon Kwak
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