Ella Baker and the black freedom movement: a radical democratic vision

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Fiercely independent and intensely committed to democracy, Ella Baker was a gifted grassroots organizer who 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 and, along with Martin Luther King, Jr., one of the founders of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference. Baker made a place for herself in male-dominated political circles that included King, W.E.B. Du Bois, Thurgood Marshall, and A. Philip Randolph, all the while nurturing political relationships with women, students, and activists - both black and white - across organizational and ideological boundaries. Baker's most notable political accomplishment was her unique role as the main political adviser to the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee in the early 1960s. A committed teacher, she also served as an intellectual mentor to a new generation of leaders such as Bob Moses, Julian Bond, Marian Wright Edelman, Connie Curry, and Eleanor Holmes Norton.