Ella Baker Quotes

Ella Baker Quotes

Ella Josephine Baker was an African-American civil rights and human rights activist born in Virginia, who grew up in North Carolina and graduated from college there, and worked for most of her life based in New York City. She was a largely behind-the-scenes organizer whose career spanned more than 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.

Baker criticized professionalized, charismatic leadership; she promoted grassroots organizing, radical democracy, and the ability of the oppressed to understand their worlds and advocate for themselves. She has been ranked as "One of the most important African American leaders of the twentieth century and perhaps the most influential woman in the Civil Rights Movement," known for her critiques not only of racism within American culture, but also the sexism and classism within the Civil Rights Movement.

✵ 13. December 1903 – 13. December 1986

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Famous Ella Baker Quotes

“Strong people do not need strong leaders.”

Ella Baker

Ella Baker's Life http://www.ellabakerschool.net/resources/about-ella-baker/ella-bakers-life from the Ella Baker School, accessed 24 February 2015

“The development of the individual to his highest potential for the benefit of the group.”

Ella Baker

The Eyes on the Prize Civil Rights Reader: documents, speeches and firsthand accounts from the Black Freedom Struggle, 1954–1990, ed. Clayborne Carson et al. (Penguin Books, 1991), p. 121.

“Remember, we are not fighting for the freedom of the Negro alone, but for the freedom of the human spirit, a larger freedom that encompasses all mankind.”

Ella Baker

"The Women Behind the Men" https://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/22/opinion/22collins.html? by Gail Collins in the The New York Times, September 22, 2007