Although known for her role as an organizer in the civil rights movement, Ella Baker was more than an activist or organizer. She spent over five decades of her life fighting for not only Black civil rights but also human rights throughout the United States. She was pivotal in key moments of the Black liberation movement and had a direct impact on Black feminist thought through her unorthodox way of life for Black women at that time, which challenged respectability politics while being aware of the intersectionality of experience well before the term was coined. In my essay, I will explore Ella Baker, her work as an activist, and the ways that I feel she is an important person whose life engenders the Black feminist praxis. As Baker was always in favor of asking questions, along with listening, the main focus of my essay will be centered around questions of who she was.

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What is a Fundi?

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          The word fundi is derived from the Swahil or Shona word funda that means to teach or to learn. Fundi is a person who is knowledgeable or skilled and is someone who teaches others what they know (Africa Social Work & Development Network). With Baker’s long history of working within movements as not only an organizer but also an educator who created her own theories around mass movements and activism, which are still used in movements today, there is little surprise that the title of fundi was applied to the woman herself.

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          And that is where I will start with Baker. From the place of her as a teacher, an organizer, and as an “activist’s activist” (Golin 3), important facets of her fibre that illustrated her strengths as both as a Black civil rights’ activist and as a Black feminist. Her ethics were based in grassroots and community level organizing and she centered her theory of activism around the belief that “real power comes from below” and could “provide a mass base for action” (Golin 9). This belief in a “bottom-up”, or “from below,” approach is further seen in her views on how leadership should be established in mass movements. Baker felt that people learn about their own power by having full participation in organizations where “leaders emerge from within the group” (Golin 90). She believed that for there to be a change, the leaders had to come from a place of experience, and did not have to be established from the elites, such as the college educated men, ministers, etc., that was so common with Black movements in the 50s and early 60s.

 

          Much of her career as an activist, particularly when working with the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNSC; pronounced Snick), was linked with guiding through asking questions, but never making the key decisions. For her, the most effective way for a movement to work was for it to be a democratic organization where all members had the opportunity to voice their concerns, answer the questions posed, and contribute to the decisions. “Personal connections exemplified Baker’s approach” (Golin 144), which were also centered in radicalism. However, as she so eloquently phrased herself, “[we] use the term radical in the original meaning—getting down to and understanding the root cause” (Golin 149). And getting down to the root of Baker is the best way to understand her contribution to Black liberation, which is so often overlooked by academics, activist movements, and history itself.  

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Who Were Her People?

 

          One question that Baker liked to ask was, ‘‘Now, who are your people?’’ (Ransby 13) and it is important to look at the intersectionality of that question. For Baker, people were not simply the result of their singular experiences but were shaped by an intersectionality of race, culture, gender, history, class, etc. She was interested in the ways that people’s identities were forged “within kinship networks, local communities and organizations” (Ransby 14). And while Baker could be identified as being more elite, as a middle-class, college-educated Black woman, she never saw herself as anything more than a woman who wanted change within the unjust systems. Her work was “grounded in class struggle as well as racial struggle, [and aimed] at full equality for all” (Golin 89). It was focused on those who were “excluded from power and status” (Golin 4), which included workers, Blacks, Indigenous, women and young people, further emphasising how her work is centered in the Black feminist praxis of intersectionality.

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          So, who was Baker, who were her people and where were her beliefs in equality shaped?

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          Born on December 13, 1903, in Norfolk, Virginia, Baker spent most of her childhood, until the age of fourteen, in Littleton, North Carolina. The middle child of her family, with an older brother, and younger sister, Baker spent much of her childhood with her father being away for work and her mother being an important member of the Baptist church. All of Baker’s “grandparents had grown up under slavery” (Ransby 14), and Baker was aware of the obstacles that Black families faced in the United States, particularly in the rural South, after Reconstruction.

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          Baker’s parents and grandparents emphasised the importance of education, hard work, and using their class advantage, as middle class, to “serve and uplift those less fortunate” (Ransby 15).  Baker grew up in what would become Black feminist theory through the belief set by her mother and her maternal grandfather, who was a preacher, that Black women should be “positive agents for change in the world” (Ransby 45). Furthermore, her “mother’s fortitude, compassion, and social engagement” (Ransby 45) were traits that Baker emulated throughout her life and the work that she did.

Although Baker grew up in a community that guided her education, and ethics, she was also raised with an emphasis on respectability politics that was set by her mother. In fact, Baker was “tutored in etiquette, proper grooming, and deportment” (Ransby 15), while being taught that she should strive for exceptionalism, humility, and to be in the service of others. Although, it should be noted that, as an activist, Baker often found herself to be the only woman in the room and freely spoke her opinions, which did cause some tension for her, especially when working at the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) with male ministers not used to a Black woman being so outspoken.

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          She attended the Shaw Academy at age 14 and then Shaw University, which was a Black college formed during the Reconstruction. However, at Shaw, Baker began to question the views of the administration, which she explained as being “founded by the New England white Christians” (Ransby 49) against the elitist assumptions and contradictions for their Black students, especially around social class and careers. This led to Baker challenging many of the policies at Shaw, including the “right of young women to walk across the campus with young men” (Baker, et al. 00:21:10-00:21:18).

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          At Shaw, Baker met TJ Roberts, who she would later marry, although, the marriage was somewhat unorthodox for the times as Baker never took Roberts’s last name, and many did not even know she was married. In fact, when the FBI began spying on Baker during the 1940s, “they assumed he [Roberts] was a female relative living with her and apparently had no idea she was married” (Ransby 102). She never felt that her marriage, or as she called it “domestic arrangement” (Ransby 102), had anything to do with her political work or activism and she kept it separate from her many positions in the civil rights’ movement.

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          Baker was always “more committed to a cause than an organization” (Ransby 46) and decided to go against respectability politics by becoming an organizer for many Black civil rights’ organizations. While she never taught in a classroom, her work with the SNSC lead her to being labeled as not just a teacher but a fundi later in her life.

After graduating with honours from Shaw in 1927, Baker moved to Harlem in the late 1920s where her work as an activist became even more developed. However, through the experiences, and as she moved to a more secular stance, she “became a radical intellectual and activist with a vision of a new social order” (Ransby 63).

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How She Changed the Future of Black Civil Rights’ Movements?

 

          Baker spent over 5 decades working within the Black civil rights and Black liberation movements through a number of organizations in her work to establish a new social order. Her first role as an organizer was while she was in Harlem, NY and she found work with militant CIO unions and the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters, where she organized coops (Golin 5). During the Great Depression, Baker was instrumental in launching the Young Negroes Cooperative League (YNCL), which focused on improving the lives of the poor while also exploring socialist alternatives to systems in place within the US (Ransby 43).

         

          During World War II, Baker became an organizer and recruiter for the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) and travelled around the country, including into the South, as a recruiter. She believed in meeting people where they lived, including pool halls, homes, Black parlors, filling stations, etc., to recruit not just college educated Black people to the NAACP’s cause but Black people from all classes (Golin 5). She became the national vice-president; however, left the position in 1946 because she felt that the NAACP was focused too much on the legal side of the movement (Golin 6). One of her prevailing views is that legalism is ineffective by itself and if people are not willing to take any step necessary to move beyond a particular spot, then they’re stuck in that spot, which the NAACP had become in her view (Baker et al. 00:28:59-00:29:19).

 

          After the Montgomery Bus Boycott in 1955-56, Baker moved to Atlanta, Georgia and cofounded the Southern Christian Leadership Convention (SCLC) along with Martin Luther King Jr., who became the SCLC president, and other activists. Baker took on the role of executive director until 1960 while they searched for a man to take over the position. However, she spent much of her time at the SCLC frustrated with the lack of movement by the organization. She had hoped that the SCLC would continue the momentum from the boycott; however, she felt it was failing to create a mass movement for change (Golin 8-11).

 

          In the 1960s, she guided the SNSC to formation and began to see the biggest change in how movements were organized. She learned through her activism that “organizing involved slowing down, getting to know people, listening to them, encouraging them to listen to one another’s experience and tackle their common problems” (Golin 4-5). This method of organization became a founding principle that the SNSC applied to the work they did through their non-violent sit-ins, their push for voter rights, and the drive for representation in the Democratic party, throughout Mississippi and the rural South.

For her, it was important that the students involved in the sit-ins, which inspired her interest in their group, should form a democratic organization, free from the influence of established civil rights’ organizations. And she worked tirelessly with them as an organizer, only ever asking questions when needed, to help guide the SNSC toward their work, which became a “model for many of the radically democratic movements that followed” (Golin 93).

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Was Her Work Situated in Black Feminist Theory?

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          Although Baker did not focus on Black feminism, it is important to center her within Black feminist theory because of her understanding of intersectionality and how it affects individuals. Furthermore, Baker exemplified the dialectic and dialogical concepts of Black feminist theories through her understanding of using intersectional experiences to confront racist oppression and had a continued dialogue focused on “intersectional anti-racist social justice” (Sheely et al. 240).  

In the end, Baker pursued equality for all in a belief that it could not be obtained by the elite few, as described by many of her male counterparts, but required mass mobilization. And, as many Black feminists have said, “we must all be in this together” (Sheehy et al. 244) for there to be any chance at an equitable system.

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Conclusion

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          In conclusion, Ella Baker was an important figure within Black feminist theory and the Black civil rights movement because she laid the foundation work for many of the movements that came after her, including providing the theory and model on how to organize a movement. While she stayed within the background of many organizations, it was her willingness to do the hard labour, keep things moving through her organizational and recruiting efforts, and her meaningful connections with people—meeting them where they lived—that led to her becoming a leader in her own right. She was instrumental as an activist who fostered activism in others while they learned from their fundi to do the very same thing. For activists everywhere, Ella Baker remains the example of not only how to organize, but how to be a leader “from below”.

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Works Cited

Africa Social Work & Development Network. “Fundi - Africa Social Work & Development Network: Mtandao Wakazi Zajamii Namaendeleo Waafrika.” Africa Social Work & Development Network | Mtandao waKazi zaJamii naMaendeleo waAfrika - We Create, Aggregate and Disseminate Information and Resources to Facilitate Social Work and Development Work in Africa., 3 Apr. 2023, africasocialwork.net/glossary/fundi/.

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Baker, Ella, et al. Fundi: The Story of Ella Baker. [Distributed by] Icarus Films, 2015.

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Ransby, Barbara. “A Reluctant Rebel And 2 An Exceptional Student Shaw Academy and Shaw University, 1918–1927.” Ella Baker & the Black Freedom Movement: A Radical Democratic Vision. Second edition., The University of North Carolina Press, 2024

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Ransby, Barbara. “Harlem During The 1930s The Making of a Black Radical Activist and Intellectual.” Ella Baker & the Black Freedom Movement: A Radical Democratic Vision. Second edition., The University of North Carolina Press, 2024

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Ransby, Barbara. “Now, Who are Your People? Norfolk, Virginia, and Littleton, North Carolina, 1903–1918.” Ella Baker & the Black Freedom Movement: A Radical Democratic Vision. Second edition., The University of North Carolina Press, 2024.

Barbara Ransby, “Chapter 3. Behind-the-Scenes View of a Behind-the-Scenes Organizer: The Roots of Ella Baker’s Political Passions" in Sisters in the Struggle: African American Women in the Civil Rights-Black Power Movement, edited by Bettye Collier-Thomas and V.P. Franklin, New York, USA: New York University Press, 2001, pp. 42-58.

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Golin, Steve. “Ella Baker: Activists’ Activist.” Women Who Invented the Sixties, University Press of Mississippi, 2022.

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Golin, Steve. “Ella Baker and the Founding of SNCC, 1960.” Women Who Invented the Sixties, University Press of Mississippi, 2022.

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Golin, Steve. “Ella Baker, Bob Moses, and Mississippi.” Women Who Invented the Sixties, University Press of Mississippi, 2022.

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Sheehy, Chris, and Suryia Nayak. “Black Feminist Methods of Activism Are the Tool for Global Social Justice and Peace.” Critical Social Policy, vol. 40, no. 2, 2020, pp. 234–57, https://doi.org/10.1177/0261018319896231.