December 13, 1903 – Birth of Civil Rights Activist Ella Baker

Ella Baker was born on December 13, 1903, this day in history.  Growing up in North Carolina, she listened to her grandfather preach about working together and giving to others. He would always ask, “What do you hope to accomplish?” Her grandmother told Ella stories about life in slavery, and especially how she exerted her freedom by her mind, even though her body was not free. And Ella’s mother always said to her, “Lift as you climb.” Ella took all these teachings to heart.

The Ella Baker Center for Human Rights, founded to build on Ella’s legacy to inspire and guide leaders who will fight injustice, relates:

After graduating in 1927 as class valedictorian, she moved to New York City and began joining social activist organizations. In 1930, she joined the Young Negroes Cooperative League, whose purpose was to develop black economic power through collective planning. She also involved herself with several women’s organizations. She was committed to economic justice for all people and once said, ‘People cannot be free until there is enough work in this land to give everybody a job.’”

Ella Baker

As did her grandfather, when she interacted with people, Ella would ask them, “What do you hope to accomplish?” Often she would hear by way of reply that they wanted justice, they wanted the vote, and they wanted to be treated like citizens.

Then she counseled them on how to go about achieving all this.

Ella began her involvement with the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) in 1940. She began as a field secretary and then served as director of branches from 1943 until 1946.

In 1957, she moved to Atlanta to help organize Martin Luther King’s new organization, the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC). She also ran a voter registration campaign called the Crusade for Citizenship.

Perhaps the work she did with the most impact was helping students form the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC). As the Ella Baker Center recounts:

She wanted to assist the new student activists because she viewed young, emerging activists as a resource and an asset to the movement. Miss Baker organized a meeting at Shaw University for the student leaders of the sit-ins in April 1960. From that meeting, the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee — SNCC — was born.”

Under her guidance, SNCC became one of the foremost advocates for human rights in the country.

She explained:

We are not fighting for the freedom of the Negro alone, but for the freedom of the human spirit.”

She added:

The struggle for rights didn’t start yesterday and has to continue until it is won.”

She continued to be a respected and influential leader in the fight for human and civil rights until her death on December 13, 1986, on her 83rd birthday.

Like many women, Ella Baker worked largely behind the scenes, with men gaining recognition for much of the accomplishments she helped achieve. As observed in a review of the book, Ella Baker & The Black Freedom Movement by Professor Barbara Ransby:

Before we continue to heap a single praise or Hosanna to men like Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., Wyatt T. Walker, Stokely Carmichael, Malcolm X, Paul Robeson, Thurgood Marshall, W.E.B. Du Bois, or any of these other gentlemen we idolize as embodiments of masculine heroism, we should know about one woman, of many, who had more wisdom, courage, and vision then almost all of them: Ms. Ella Baker.”