One of the most important African American leaders of the twentieth
century and perhaps the most influential woman in the civil rights
movement, Ella Baker (1903-1986) was an activist whose remarkable
career spanned fifty years and touched thousands of lives.
A gifted grassroots
organizer, Baker shunned the spotlight in favor of vital
behind-the-scenes work that helped power the black freedom struggle.
She was a national officer and key figure in the National Association
for the Advancement of Colored People, one of the founders of the
Southern Christian Leadership Conference, and a prime mover in the
creation of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee. Baker made
a place for herself in predominantly male political circles that
included W. E. B. Du Bois, Thurgood Marshall, and Martin Luther King
Jr., all the while maintaining relationships with a vibrant group of
women, students, and activists both black and white.
In this deeply
researched biography, Barbara Ransby chronicles Baker's long and rich
political career as an organizer, an intellectual, and a teacher,
from her early experiences in depression-era Harlem to the civil
rights movement of the 1950s and 1960s. Ransby shows Baker to be a
complex figure whose radical, democratic worldview, commitment to
empowering the black poor, and emphasis on group-centered, grassroots
leadership set her apart from most of her political contemporaries.
Beyond documenting an extraordinary life, the book paints a vivid
picture of the African American fight for justice and its
intersections with other progressive struggles worldwide across the
twentieth century.