Zinn continued: "She was always doing the nitty-gritty, down-in-the-earth work that other people were not doing. We aren’t free until within us we have that deep sense of freedom from a lot of things that we don’t even mention in these meetings. Whether Baker was supporting local branches of the NAACP, working behind the scenes to establish the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) with Martin Luther King Jr., or mentoring college students through the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), she was … [3] And as I have listened here tonight, my spirit has rove over a long period of years and I can think of a number of things I would like to say, but if I had anything at all to say tonight is to remind us of something that occurred to me, something that came into focus in a conversation on the night that Medger Evers’s body came through Atlanta. Maegan Parker Brooks From left -- Emory Harris, Stokely Carmichael (in hat), Sam Block, Eleanor Holmes, and Ella Baker. Bigger than any group of people, and it is the cause of humanity. Freedom of Speech 5. This transcript is the result of a tape-recorded interview conducted by John H. Britton, staff associate, Civil Rights Documentation Project, with Miss Ella Baker in Washington, D.C., June 19, 1968. After graduating from Shaw University, Ella Baker moved to New York City and began her career as a grassroots organizer. Whether Baker was supporting local branches of the NAACP, working behind the scenes to establish the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) with Martin Luther King Jr., or mentoring college students through the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), she was … Baker was regarded as a powerful and inspiring figure, but she consciously avoided the limelight. Ransby, 228. [8] I love to hear us sing. In Ella Baker and the Black Freedom Movement, Barbara Ransby argues that Baker and King had radically different philosophies of change. Here is a transcript of Mr. Biden’s remarks as they were prepared for delivery. Social & Economic Justice Ella Baker was a civil rights activist and important member of some of the most influential organizations in the civil rights movement. That is, they didn’t do anything about it. Ella Baker was born on December 18, 1903, in Norfolk, Virginia, USA.Her parents were Georgiana and Blake Baker. Ella Baker, Key Note Speech before the State Convention of the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party, August 6, 1964 Let Nobody Turn Us Around : An African American Anthology by Manning Marable (Editor); Leith Mullings (Editor) [6] And unless we see this thing in its larger perspective, unless we realize that certainly we must sing, we must have the inspiration of song, the inspiration that comes from songs like this one that was created and demonstrated here tonight, but we also must have the information that comes from lots and lots of study. "2 Baker's father was railroad dining-car waiter. Baker's method, with the SNCC cadre and local southern communities, was to create "conditions of possibility for others to find their voices and develop leadership. ELLA BAKER, “ADDRESS AT THE HATTIESBURG FREEDOM DAY RALLY” (21 JANUARY 1964) Classroom Activities. War & Peace, 1700-1899 Ella Baker & The Black Freedom Movement) Give people light and they will find a way. (Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press, 2003), 373. Ella Baker was a tireless fighter for the social equality of Black Americans. "Local people would be there long after she had gone. (Joanne Grant, Ella Baker: Freedom Bound, 163) 3 And you know what? I learned from my grandmother's stories about her life as a slave, And that is when it began, my want for social justice. Ella Baker, official of the Southern Conference Educational Fund, speaks at the Jeannette Rankin news conference on Jan. 3, 1968. Ella Baker: Bigger Than a Hamburger Baker wrote this summary of the speech she gave at the Southwide Student Leadership Conference on Nonviolent Resistance to Segregation, Shaw University, April 1960. The tribute dinner took place three weeks after King's assassination in Memphis. Diane M. Blair That tomorrow if we were to call up all the able-bodied men in our country, who could do some work, we wouldn’t have work for them to do. "6 With Baker's help, the Mississippi civil rights movement would become one of the most successful chapters of the freedom story in the South. United we can, and will, overcome this season of darkness in America. But in my own experience the differences were more of emphasis than of kind, and both played necessary roles. Reddick, “Notes on Southern Christian Leadership Conference Administrative Committee Meeting,” April 1959, in Papers 5:171-179.. Young, An Easy Burden, 1996. Barbara Ransby, Ella Baker and the Black Freedom Movement, A Radical Democratic Vision Citizenship & Civic Identity 7. The women workers were routinely approached by white men wanting to pay for sex. She was a guiding force for prominent movement leaders such as Martin Luther King Jr. and Stokely Carmichael, and she fueled the work of several leading organizations in the freedom movement. She'd kept her maiden name and was universally referred to as Miss Ella Baker. Human rigthts activist Ella Baker Joe Biden opened his acceptance speech Thursday night by quoting someone whom most of the audience -- indeed, most American -- have never heard of. Unfortunately, there is no Selma for Ella Josephine Baker. Howard Zinn, introductory remarks, "Salute To Ella Baker," Pacifica Radio Archives, BB3142. "It was the opportunity to dig in and work shoulder to shoulder with local activists that most appealed to Baker," Ransby writes. Ella Baker (1903—1986) played an instrumental role in the development of the civil rights movement of the 1950s and 1960s. Aaron Henry said that I had had … Ella Baker never officially retired from public life. William Apess The Bradens were journalists and radical activists from Louisville, Kentucky who challenged racial oppression in their hometown and across the South. She managed the household, was active in church and women's groups, and groomed her children to be pious and respectable citizens. Baker often spent a half of each year on the road. [5] And I’m not talking about Negroes, I’m talking about people. "Ella Baker, a giant of the civil rights movement, left us with this wisdom: Give people light and they will find a way," Biden said. Civil Rights "Such people get so involved with playing the game of being important that they exhaust themselves and their time and they don't do the work of actually organizing. The commission had been appointed by President Lyndon Johnson to study the causes of rioting in African American urban neighborhoods in 1967. The rest of the country for a long time tacitly agreed. It brought together a new generation of organizers, including Stokely Carmichael, Bob Moses, Diane Nash, Julian Bond, and John Lewis. This lesson introduces students to the life and times of civil rights activist Ella Baker (1903-1986). Baker begins the interview by describing how her work in the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) from the late 1930s into … Helen Caldicott Raleigh, NC — The Student Leadership Conference made it crystal clear that current sit-ins and other demonstrations are … Good evening. She was the granddaughter of slaves, one of three children born into an extended family of modest means and strong social ideals. And so we must come to grips with a lot of problems. 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