Ella Baker
Ella Baker
Ella Josephine Bakerwas an African-American civil rights and human rights activist. She was a largely behind-the-scenes organizer whose career spanned over five decades. She worked alongside some of the most famous civil rights leaders of the 20th century, including W. E. B. Du Bois, Thurgood Marshall, A. Philip Randolph, and Martin Luther King, Jr. She also mentored many emerging activists such as Diane Nash, Stokely Carmichael, Rosa Parks, and Bob Moses. She was a critic of professionalized, charismatic leadership and...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionCivil Rights Leader
Date of Birth13 December 1903
CityNorfolk, VA
CountryUnited States of America
Ella Baker quotes about
When I came out of the Depression, I came out of it with a different point of view as to what constituted success. And that was even just even personal success.
Martin [Luther King] wasn't one to buck forces too much.
I had been friendly with people who were in the Communist party and all the rest of the Left forces, which were oriented in the direction of mass action.
Martin [Luther King] wasn't, basically, the kind of person - certainly at the stage that I knew him closest - wasn't the kind of person you could engage in dialogue with, certainly, if the dialogue questioned the almost exclusive rightness of his position.
In order for us as poor and oppressed people to become part of a society that is meaningful, the system under which we now exist has to be radically changed... It means facing a system that does not lend its self to your needs and devising means by which you change that system.
One of the things that has to be faced is the process of waiting to change the system, how much we have got to do to find out who we are, where we have come from and where we are going.