BAKER, ELLA

(1903-1986), civil rights activist. Baker was born in Virginia and at the age of seven moved with her family to Littleton, North Carolina, where they settled on her grandparents' farm—land they had worked as slaves. Her aunt was a midwife and her mother active in the church, so Baker grew up around women engaged in community work. Her mother prodded her into attending Shaw University in Raleigh, from which she graduated in 1927.

Baker hoped to attend graduate school but first went to New York City to live with family. The Great Depression dashed her hopes of higher education, and she became involved in community activities. By 1932 she had become national director of the Young Negroes Cooperative League, a branch of the Works Progress Administration (wpa). She also worked during this period as a waitress, a factory worker, and a journalist.

In 1938 Baker became a field secretary in the South with the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (naacp). Her rapport with southern rural folk, her willingness to talk with rather than at her potential recruits, gave Baker an edge in the naacp's campaign for members. But by 1946 she was decidedly out of step with the conservative male ministerial leadership of the organization; her blunt manner, deep, booming voice, and formidable presence were disturbing to ministers accustomed to more docile "sisters." When a niece required care, Baker took the girl back with her to New York City and resigned from her naacp post, ostensibly for personal reasons. Many urged her to voice her concerns about egocentric leadership within the organization, but she refused to fuel dissent and reaffirmed her loyalty by serving as president of the Manhattan naacp in 1954.

Baker returned South to work with the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (sclc) established during the Montgomery bus boycott of 1955-1956 and headed by Martin Luther King, Jr. Following sit-ins at lunch counters in Greensboro, North Carolina, in February 1960 she organized a youth leadership meeting for Easter weekend at her alma mater. Hundreds responded to her call. Baker engineered the conference so that students controlled the agenda, defying the established black leaders who attempted to coopt the activists. Baker thus helped the students establish an independent network, the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee (sncc). Shortly thereafter, she quit sclc to work with sncc, being more in tune with its collectivist, nonhierarchical leadership. During the struggle for voting rights in the South, Baker remained at the core of the movement, delivering the keynote address at the 1964 Jackson convention of the Mississippi Freedom Democratic party—formed in protest against the segregated mainstream political parties.

Baker remained active well into the 1970s, and, indeed, in her seventies and eighties, she was fighting for liberation in Africa, struggling against racial intolerance in America, and working for many organizations and causes, especially in Harlem. She was a source of wisdom for her old comrades and an inspiration for the young.

"Ella Baker," in G. J. Barker Benfield and Catherine Clinton, eds., Portraits of American Women (1991); Ellen Cantarow and Susan O'Malley, Moving the Mountain: Women Working for Social Change (1980).

Catherine Clinton

See also Civil Rights Movement; National Association for the Advancement of Colored People; Southern Christian Leadership Conference; Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee.