Ella Baker

Background

Ella Josephine Baker was raised in Norfolk, Virginia, by her parents Georgiana (called Anna) and Blake Baker. In a race riot in Norfolk in 1910, whites attacked black shipyard workers. While their father continued to work for the shipping firm, her mother decided to move the family back to North Carolina. Baker had little impact as a child. Her father’s parents lived a day’s ride away, and her grandfather, Mitchell, had passed away. She frequently listened to stories told by her grandmother, Josephine Elizabeth ‘Bet’ Ross, about leaving the South to escape its oppressive culture. Ella received valedictorian honors after graduating from Shaw University in Raleigh, North Carolina. Years later, she returned to Shaw University to assist in the founding of S.N.C.C.

Then, in the quest for work, she relocated to New York. There she encountered individuals dealing with the Great Depression’s effects of poverty and misery and was introduced to the radical political action that would later become her life’s work. She joined the Young Negroes Cooperative League (Y.N.C.L.) in the late 1920s after relocating to New York, which allowed its members to combine their money to receive better prices on goods and services. She quickly rose to the position of national director. Baker started working as a field secretary for the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (N.A.A.C.P.) in around 1940. In the role, she traveled a lot while raising money and enlisting new members for the group. She was appointed the N.A.A.C.P.’s national director of branches in 1943 but left the position three years later to care for her niece Jackie Brockington. Despite this, she continued to work with the New York branch to integrate neighborhood schools and raise the bar for black students’ education. She continued to live in New York and worked for a variety of regional businesses, including the New York Urban League. In 1952, she was appointed director of the N.A.A.C.P. chapter in New York.

Under Martin Luther King J.r.’s leadership, Baker assisted in the founding of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (S.C.L.C.) in 1957. She oversaw the S.C.L.C.’s office in Atlanta, Georgia, and served as acting executive director; nevertheless, she also had disagreements with King and other male S.C.L.C. officials, who weren’t used to facing resistance from such a strong-willed woman, before leaving the group in 1960. She helped plan the event that gave rise to the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee (S.N.C.C.) in 1960 while she was working for the S.C.L.C. She gave this group of student activists her assistance and advice. Even in her older years, she fought for social justice and equality, advising groups like the Puerto Rican Solidarity Committee and the Third World Women’s Coordinating Committee. In the late 1930s, Baker wed T.J. Roberts; they divorced in 1958. On December 13, 1986 — her 83rd birthday — Baker passed away in New York City.