Who Was Ella Baker?

The Ella Baker Center for Human Rights was named after a largely unsung hero of the civil rights Freedom Movement who inspired and guided emerging leaders. Like her, we spark change by unlocking the power of people to make real change. We seek to honor Miss Baker’s legacy through our people-powered campaigns.

Ella Jo Baker was born on December 13, 1903, in Norfolk, Virginia. She developed a sense for social justice early in her life. As a girl growing up in North Carolina, Baker listened to her grandmother tell stories about slave revolts. As a slave, her grandmother had been whipped for refusing to marry a man chosen for her by the slave owner.

Baker studied at Shaw University in Raleigh, North Carolina. As a student she challenged school policies that she thought were unfair. After graduating in 1927 as class valedictorian, she moved to New York City and began joining social activist organizations. In 1930, she joined the Young Negroes Cooperative League, whose purpose was to develop black economic power through collective planning. She also involved herself with several women's organizations. She was committed to economic justice for all people and once said, "People cannot be free until there is enough work in this land to give everybody a job."

Ella Baker began her involvement with the NAACP in 1940. She worked as a field secretary and then served as director of branches from 1943 until 1946. Inspired by the historic bus boycott in Montgomery, Alabama, in 1955, Baker co-founded the organization In Friendship to raise money to fight against Jim Crow Laws in the deep South. In 1957, Baker moved to Atlanta to help organize Martin Luther King's new organization, the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC). She also ran a voter registration campaign called the Crusade for Citizenship.

On February 1, 1960, a group of black college students from North Carolina A&T University refused to leave a Woolworth's lunch counter in Greensboro, North Carolina where they had been denied service. Baker left the SCLC after the Greensboro sit-ins. She wanted to assist the new student activists because she viewed young, emerging activists as a resource and an asset to the movement. Miss Baker organized a meeting at Shaw University for the student leaders of the sit-ins in April 1960. From that meeting, the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee -- SNCC -- was born.

Adopting the Gandhian theory of nonviolent direct action, SNCC members joined with activists from the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) to organize in the 1961 Freedom Rides. In 1964 SNCC helped create Freedom Summer, an effort to focus national attention on Mississippi's racism and to register black voters. Miss Baker, and many of her contemporaries, believed that voting was one key to freedom. 50 years later, folks of color and low-income people still face barriers to voting. If we do not exercise our collective voice, we are unable to influence the policies and laws that impact our lives. To be counted, we must be heard. Our Soul of the City civic engagement work and participation with Oakland Rising builds on the Voting Rights work of the 60s.

With Ella Baker's guidance and encouragement, SNCC became one of the foremost advocates for human rights in the country. Ella Baker once said, "This may only be a dream of mine, but I think it can be made real." Her audacity to dream big is a cornerstone of our philosophy.

Her influence was reflected in the nickname she acquired: "Fundi," a Swahili word meaning a person who teaches a craft to the next generation. Baker continued to be a respected and influential leader in the fight for human and civil rights until her death on December 13, 1986, her 83rd birthday.

Wanting to celebrate Ella Jo Baker as an unsung hero of racial and economic justice and seeking to honor her legacy of leadership and movement building, our founders chose to name our Center for Ella Baker. Our Executive Director, Jakada Imani reflects, "Long before I would ever hear the name of Ella Jo Baker, I was living inside of the world her leadership help create. As a child of Oakland I grew up hearing about the role of young people as front line fighters for freedom in the Civil Rights Movement. I got my start in the movement in youth programs that were based on the work Ms. Baker had done with SNCC, leadership programs based in the idea that young folks had something special to contribute to the struggle for freedom. That's now part of my DNA and I take it everywhere I go."

“The major job was getting people to understand that they had something within their power that they could use, and it could only be used if they understood what was happening and how group action could counter violence…” - Ella Jo Baker

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Our four campaigns engage people in the work of building a brighter future where all people and communities can thrive:

Books Not Bars fights to redirect California's resources away from youth incarceration and towards youth opportunities.

Miss Baker often asked, "What is the excuse for so much poverty in a country as rich as America?" Our Green Collar Job Campaignbuilds California's green economy to put the planet and people first.

Miss Baker said, "Oppressed people, whatever their level of formal education, have the ability to understand and interpret the world around them...to transform it." Soul of the City is our hands-on, hands-together campaign to create a vibrant and thriving Oakland.

Heal the Streets, like SNCC, is built on Miss Baker's theory that young people are assets to the movement for freedom. This fellowship creates proactive youth voices in the fight for social change.