Baker, Ella Josephine

Baker, Ella Josephine, 1903–1986, U.S. civil rights activist, b. Norfolk, Va. Ella Baker was an activist and organizer whose behind-the-scenes efforts made her one of the most important figures in the American civil rightsmovement. Baker attended Shaw University in Raleigh, North Carolina. After graduating in 1927, she moved to New York, where she worked as national director of the Young Negroes Cooperative League. In 1938, she joined the staff of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) as an assistant field secretary. In 1958, Baker moved to Atlanta to organize the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) Crusade for Citizenship, a campaign aimed to enforce voting rights for Black citizens.

Throughout her career, Baker emphasized the importance of a grassroots approach to activism and movement organizing, rather than an approach that emphasized charismatic leadership. In both the NAACP and SCLC, Baker felt that the leadership of these organizations was too detached from the ordinary people they were supposed to assist. She founded one of the most influential organizations of the civil rights movement, the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), at Shaw University in 1960. Baker advised student activists organizing SNCC to promote "group-centered leaders" rather than the "leader-centered" strategy she linked with Martin LutherKing's SCLC. SNCC members joined with activists from the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) to organize the Freedom Rides in 1961. Baker returned to New York in the late 1960s and remained active in the civil rights struggle until her death in 1986 at the age of 83. The Ella Baker Center for Human Rights in Oakland, California, continues her legacy.

See J. Grant, Ella Baker: Freedom Bound (1998); B. Ransby, Ella Baker and the Black Freedom Movement: A Radical Democratic Vision (2003); J. T. Moye, Ella Baker: Community Organizer of the Civil Rights Movement (2013); C. West, Black Prophetic Fire (2015); P. S. Parker, Ella Baker's Catalytic Leadership: A Primer on Community Engagement and Communication for Social Justice (2020).

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