“Give light and people will find the way”

Ella Josephine Baker was born on December 13, 1903, in Norfolk, Virginia. 

While growing up in North Carolina in the early 20th century she quickly showed a passion for social justice. In her early life her grandparent greatly influenced her by sharing stories about their lives as slaves.

During her time at Shaw University in Raleigh, North Carolina she focused in on her skills with the debate teacher and became the youngest member of the campus newspaper. In 1927, Ella graduated as the Valedictorian. She didn't just leave Shaw with a new knowledge , she left with a sense to challenge authority and question the status quo.  Ella has said that Shaw and church were the biggest instructions of her early life. 

Once graduated from Shaw, Ella moved to New York to pursue a career as a writer, editor, and activist. When she moved to New York she discovered poverty and hardship caused by the Great Depression and turned to activism.

She joined the National Association for the Advancement of Colored people or NAACP. In the NAACP she was know as a great recruiter, secretary, and organizer who was able to connect with none members on a personal level. Her involvement in the organization lead to her pivotal role in the Civil Rights moment of the 1960s. In 1952, she was appoint president of the NAACP which she held for many years. She left to pursue working on improving education for black students. 

In the late 1920s Ella joined Young Negroes Cooperative League, which was created to form cooperative groups that would pool community resources and thus provide less-expensive goods and services to members as well as further developing black economic power through collective planning. 

Church was always a big part of Ella's live which impacted her decisions throughout her life.  Including when she meet with a group of Southern black ministers to help for the Southern Christian Leadership Conference or SCLC for short.  This organization worked to plan more reform efforts throughout the Southern United States. Ella served as their director,  Martin Luther King, Jr., served as the SCLC’s first president. During this time she lead a voter registration campaign entitled the Crusade for Citizenship. 

Another organization that Ella worked with was the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC). She provided guidance and encouragement to the students which earned her the nickname "Fundi", a Swahili word meaning a person who teaches to the next generation. She pushed students to organize sit-ins, the freedom rides, the Mississippi Freedom Summer, and the 1963 March on Washington.