Female Leadership Behind the Scenes: Ella Baker and the Civil Rights Movement

0:00 Welcome back to another episode of Bridge From the Past, art across US history. I’m your host, Mary, and this series is for students like you to get ahead in your US. History class by using images as a starting point to think about important topics in American history. Today, we’re shining a light on a lesser known but key leader of the civil rights movement, Ella Baker.

0:22 Maybe you’ve never even heard of her, but who was she? And why is it important that we learn about and honor her story? Let’s jump in and see. Once again, we’re looking at the civil rights movement, which is roughly 1955 to 1965. When I was in school and someone said civil rights movement to me,

0:44 I would immediately think of Martin Luther King, Jr. And here he is on the screen delivering his famous I Have a Dream speech at the 1963 March on Washington. But again, our focus isn’t on Martin Luther King. His role and his leadership in the civil rights movement were absolutely instrumental and incredibly important. But I want to add to this narrative by giving Ella Baker her due.

1:08 So here she is, Ella Baker. Ella Baker really worked alongside Martin Luther King, Jr. And her work was just as instrumental to the civil rights movement. So who was she? I’m going to start by saying that even finding a picture of Ella Baker, which we have right here, this is her pictured around 1943, is really hard to do.

1:30 And I think that points to how buried her story actually is and the role that she played. But Ella Baker is born in Norfolk, Virginia, and she’s raised in North Carolina. Her grandparents were enslaved, and they would tell her stories about their lives. Her mother was an activist, and she really believed that women played an important role in their communities.

1:50 And she passes the spirit on to Ella Baker. So Ella Baker, she actually graduates as a valedictorian or at the top of her class of Shaw University in Raleigh, North Carolina. And then she moves to New York City to work for the NAACP. So we have seen the NAACP before on Bridge from the Past. It was an organization that’s formed in 1909

2:12 as an interracial organization to work for justice for African Americans. It’s really the largest and the oldest civil rights organization in the United States. And Ella Baker’s role was a field secretary. So basically, what she would do is she would travel around and talk to African Americans and listen to their stories and try to encourage them to organize and to speak up against

2:35 the discrimination and the violence that they faced. So this is before social media. This is before Google Maps. She’s driving around, she’s talking to people, she’s listening to people. And for African Americans to speak up against the discrimination or the violence that they face could have really serious consequences for them. So it’s a difficult job,

2:57 but she was a really good listener, and she was really good at identifying people that she thought would make good leaders and sort of coaching them and prodding them and pushing them to take on leadership roles themselves. In fact, one such person that attended one of Ella Baker’s workshops when she worked for the NAACP was Rosa Parks.

3:19 So she works as a field secretary for the NAACP, and then she becomes a director of branches. And this picture here on the left here dates from when she takes over this role. So this makes her the highest ranking woman in the NAACP, but she leaves this job because she becomes frustrated with the bureaucratic nature of the organization.

3:39 So a bureaucracy is really sort of all the administration and the offices that help a large organization run. And Ella Baker thought that more leadership should be given to people at the bottom or in the local branches. So that was sort of her key belief, this belief that grassroots leadership is really important and something that she embraced her entire life.

4:03 So in 1957, she moves to Atlanta to help organize the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, or SCLC. So the SCLC is formed after the success of the Montgomery Bus boycott, which is where Rosa Parks refuses to give up her seat on the bus, and that movement becomes very successful.

4:23 So Ella Baker, as a former worker in NAACP, she has all these contacts. She knows all these people. She’s a really good organizer. She’s absolutely instrumental in creating this organization. Martin Luther King, Jr. Becomes the first president and the figure head of the organization, and he’s going to rise to prominence. But really behind the scenes, organizing and setting up campaigns is Ella Baker.

4:47 So even though you hear about Martin Luther King, Ella Baker’s role was really important as well. She becomes frustrated again with sort of this leadership at the top and believing more people at the bottom should be playing a larger role. So she’s already kind of disenchanted or becoming disenchanted with the SCLC. And when she sees, in 1960, a group of black college students stay

5:10 just sitting at a lunch counter in Greensboro, North Carolina. Ella Baker realizes that they have huge potential, these student leaders, and she calls a meeting of them, shaw University, her alma mater. And what ends up happening or coming out of this meeting is that the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, or SNCC, is formed.

5:32 Snick would play an enormous role in the civil rights movement with voter registration campaigns, the Freedom Rides, the march from Selma to Montgomery, Alabama, which is when Bloody Sunday happens. So SNCC is such an important piece of the civil rights movement, just like the Southern Christian Leadership Conference was as well.And

5:52 Ella Baker, she really believed in young people and encouraging new leadership. And she says, quote, that the young people were the hope of any movement. They were the people who kept the spirit going. So she goes on to mentor SNCC leaders, and she plays a really powerful force behind the scenes throughout the civil rights movement.

6:12 So I’ve given you the very briefest overview of her story. And so the big question is, why don’t we hear about her? And I think here are some ideas. First of all, she was really behind the scenes. She’s talking to people, she’s listening, she’s organizing. So this doesn’t make as exciting as the story as, say, Rosa Parks refusing to give up her seat on a bus.

6:33 She never sought out recognition for herself. She really believed in encouraging people who she saw as leaders and sort of passing the torch onto young people in particular. And finally, her male colleagues never really gave her her due. She was an incredibly important part of the movement. And this is the 1940s, guys, where equality or rough equality

6:59 that men and women experience in our country today wasn’t wasn’t happening. We were still fighting for that recognition in this time period. I’m leaving you here with an image of a mural in Philadelphia which puts Ella Baker next to Martin Luther King, Jr. Malcolm Shabaz or Malcolm Little, Malcolm X, and Frederick Douglas.

7:20 And it’s Ella Baker who’s quoted here. We who believe in freedom cannot rest. And again, it’s referring to Ella Baker and the founding of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, or SNCC. And down here, she’s called a patriot, dedicated her life as well as the stoneman here to civil rights and a better America.

7:43 We started by asking, who was Ella Baker and what was her role in the civil rights movement? We learned that she played an important role in three of the 20th century’s major civil rights organizations the NAACP, the SCLC, and SNCC. She continued her activism until her death. Now I turn it over to you.

8:03 Ella Baker once said that strong people don’t need strong leaders. What do you think? What are the qualities of a good leader? I’d love to know your thoughts in the comments section below. Once again, guys, I’ve just hit on the tip of the iceberg, and there’s so much more to the story. What do you have questions about? What do you want to know more about? Let me know in the comments below.

8:24 If you learned something, be sure to like this video and subscribe to our channel to be in the know about other videos, contests, and other resources to help you through this school year. I’ll be back soon with another image to help us think about the stories of America’s past. Until then, keep your eyes open. Always look at the pictures and keep asking questions.

8:44 Take care, everybody.