Ella Josephine Baker (1903 - 1986)

Ancestors

Biography

Ella Baker, "one of the most important American leaders of the twentieth century and perhaps the most influential woman in the civil rights movement,"^[1]achieved her goals through "empowering the most common person, whether a sharecropper, teenager, or illiterate vagrant, with skills to make demands on the political establishment."^[2]She shone a light on the darkness of racism, she worked her entire life to make the invisible visible, yet she remains to this day the Invisible Woman.

Born in 1903 in Norfolk, Virginia, her parents were Georgiana "Anna" Ross and Blake Baker.^[3] Her grandparents were all born in slavery in North Carolina; her paternal grandparents were Margaret Davis and Teamer Baker, and her maternal grandparents were Josephine Elizabeth "Bet" Jones and Mitchell Ross.^[4]Ella had two siblings that survived to adulthood: older brother Blake Curtis Baker and younger sister Maggie Baker.

When Ella was seven, a 1910 Norfolk race riot at the port of her father's employment spurred her mother to take the children from Norfolk^[5] to her rural hometown of Littleton, North Carolina. There Ella grew up^[6] listening to her grandmother Bet's oral history of the injustices and rebellions in the life of a slave. As a young woman Bet had been whipped for refusing to marry a man chosen for her by her enslaver.^[3]

Ella attended Shaw University, an historically Black university in Raleigh, North Carolina. As a student, she challenged school policies which she thought were unfair. In 1927, she graduated as class valedictorian and moved to New York City,^[1] at first staying with a married cousin,^[7][8] during the period of the Great Migration, when many Blacks were leaving the South to escape Jim Crow oppression.

She married Thomas J. "Bob" Roberts around the time she began her association with the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP). She was dedicated to her cause and their respective work schedules often kept them apart; they divorced in 1958.^[1] They had no children, but she took in a niece in 1946, which required her to shift her priorities for a time.^[3]

Starting as an assistant field secretary for the NAACP in New York in 1940, she became the highest ranking woman in the organization. She was a tireless organizer, recruiter, mentor, fundraiser, and networker, travelling all over the country and advocating for a grassroots approach to change, believing that the true strength of an organization was in its members, not its leaders.
She said:

You didn't see me on television, you didn't see news stories about me. The kind of role that I tried to play was to pick up pieces or put together pieces out of which I hoped organization might come. My theory is, strong people don't need strong leaders.^[3]

She helped organize and later was interim executive director of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, the "political arm of the Black church," from 1958-1960, after which she played a key role in bringing about the formation of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, which grew to become the most active civil rights organization in the Deep South, sponsoring dramatic events such as Freedom Rides to gain public awareness and support. In 1964 she helped organize the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party as an alternative to the all-white Mississippi Democratic Party.^[3] The party was formed before the 1964 Democratic National Convention by Black Democrats who were barred from the Mississippi delegation.^[9]

She continued her activism until her death on 13 December 1986,^[10] her 83rd birthday.^[1] She was buried at Flushing Cemetery, Flushing, Queens County, New York, USA. ^[11]

Sources

1. ↑ ^{1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3} Barbara Ransby, Ella Baker & the Black Freedom Movement: A Radical Democratic Vision, (Chapel Hill, North Carolina: The University of North Carolina Press, 2013) pp. 6, 13–63, 344–374.
2. ↑ Pascal Robert, "Ella Baker and the Limits of Charismatic Masculinity," Huffington Post, (February 21, 2013).
3. ↑ ^{3.0 3.1 3.2 3.3 3.4} Wikipedia contributors, "Ella Baker," Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ella_Baker
4. ↑ J. Todd Moye, Ella Baker: Community Organizer of the Civil Rights Movement, (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2013) p. 20.
5. ↑ "United States Census, 1910," database with images, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:MPG3-3RM : accessed 30 June 2020), Ella J Baker in household of Blake Baker, Tanner Creek, Norfolk, Virginia, United States; citing enumeration district (ED) ED 76, sheet 22B, family 433, NARA microfilm publication T624 (Washington D.C.: National Archives and Records Administration, 1982), roll 1639; FHL microfilm 1,375,652.

   Blake Baker Head Male 46 North Carolina

   Georgianna Baker Wife Female 40 North Carolina

   Blake C Baker Son Male 8 Virginia

   Ella J Baker Daughter Female 6 Virginia

   Maggie M Baker Daughter Female 1 North Carolina

   Fred Williams Lodger Male 25 North Carolina

   Chester A Williams Lodger Male y North Carolina

6. ↑ "United States Census, 1920," database with images, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:MZJD-XYH : accessed 8 August 2020), Ella Baker in household of Annia Baker, Littleton, Halifax, North Carolina, United States; citing ED 42, sheet 5A, line 22, family 101, NARA microfilm publication T625 (Washington D.C.: National Archives and Records Administration, 1992), roll 1303; FHL microfilm 1,821,303.

   Annia Baker Head Female 50 North Carolina

   Curtis Baker Son Male 18 Virginia

   Ella Baker Daughter Female 16 North Carolina

   Maggie Baker Daughter Female 13 North Carolina

7. ↑ "United States Census, 1930," database with images, FamilySearch (https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:X4PM-M7X : accessed 5 March 2022), Ella J Baker in household of Frank Grinage, Manhattan (Districts 1001-1249), New York, New York, United States; citing enumeration district (ED) ED 1048, sheet 5B, line 96, family 134, NARA microfilm publication T626 (Washington D.C.: National Archives and Records Administration, 2002), roll 1578; FHL microfilm 2,341,313.

   Frank Grinage Head Male 39 District of Columbia

   Martha Grinage Wife Female 36 Virginia

   Ella J Baker Cousin Female 26 Virginia

8. ↑ "United States Census, 1940," database with images, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:KQG8-9Y8 : 15 February 2020), Ella J Baker, Assembly District 13, Manhattan, New York City, New York, New York, United States; citing enumeration district (ED) 31-1129, sheet 13B, line 51, family 258, Sixteenth Census of the United States, 1940, NARA digital publication T627. Records of the Bureau of the Census, 1790 - 2007, RG 29. Washington, D.C.: National Archives and Records Administration, 2012, roll 2651.
9. ↑ Irv Randolph, "The Work and Wisdom of Ella Baker," The Philadelphia Tribune, (Mar 2, 2019).
10. ↑ "United States Social Security Death Index," database, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:VSNT-2PN : 7 January 2021), Ella Baker, Dec 1986; citing U.S. Social Security Administration, Death Master File, database (Alexandria, Virginia: National Technical Information Service, ongoing).
11. ↑ Find a Grave, database and images (https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/14992167/ella-josephine-baker : accessed 05 March 2022), memorial page for Ella Josephine Baker (13 Dec 1903–13 Dec 1986), Find A Grave: Memorial #14992167, citing Flushing Cemetery, Flushing, Queens County, New York, USA; Maintained by Curtis Jackson (contributor 46552524).

See also:

• Wikidata: Item Q468884, en:Wikipedia
• Ella Baker Educational Project of NC