“There would not have been an SNCC without Ella Baker. While serving as Executive Secretary for the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC), she organized the founding conference of SNCC, held at Shaw University in Raleigh, North Carolina, during the Easter weekend of 1960.” https://snccdigital.org/people/ella-baker/
When we think of the US Civil Rights movement and the modern struggle for justice and freedom, we rarely think of women outside of Mrs. Rosa Parks. However, truth be told numerous women-led facets of the movement. One such woman was Ella Josephine Baker. Ella Baker was born in Norfolk, Virginia on December 13, 1903, but was raised in Littleton, North Carolina where she was close to her maternal grandmother–who told her stories about her experiences and treatment as an enslaved person. Her grandmother’s experiences and Ella’s life in the early 1900s stoked a desire for justice and a determination to right the wrongs she saw all around her.
Ella Baker was a bright young woman. She attended and graduated from Shaw University in North Carolina as her class valedictorian in 1927. While at Shaw, she became an activist and challenged some of the school’s policies she regarded as unfair. After graduation, she moved to New York City and became active in local activism there. She joined the Young Negroes Cooperative League, an organization that pushed for economic development using a collectivist approach.
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