Ella Josephine BakerElla Josephine BakerElla BakerElla Josephine Baker was born in Virginia, and at the age of seven Ella Baker moved with her family to Littleton, South Carolina, where they settled on her grandparents farmland her grandparents had worked as slaves. Ella Bakers early life was steeped in Southern black culture. Her most vivid childhood memories were of the strong traditions of self-help, mutual cooperation, and sharing of economic resources that encompassed her entire community. Because there was no local secondary school, in 1918, when Ella was fifteen years old, her parents sent her to Shaw boarding school in Raleigh, the high school academy of Shaw University. Ella excelled academically at Shaw, graduating as valedictorian of her college class from Shaw University in Raleigh in 1927.
Ella’s friends thought she would “become a good school girl, but the thing is, she’s only 16 now”.[4] There was already a stigma of a black woman as a delinquent or a loser in the community.[5] And after the first couple of years of school and living a typical life there was a fear of social stigma that began to creep into the everyday life of teenage girls.[6]
Toward the end of her junior year, as of 1847 she was a member of the school council, which was charged with fixing school attendance rates.[7] Ella and her friends, including her best friend, and other school members were also involved in the “Black Student Association” which was involved in getting black students to learn English and socialize. In the summer of 1847 the Black Student Association held a meeting with three members of the Council, the first meeting of which was organized in 1847 in a place called Cajun Place, in Cherokee Indian Country.
Ella was a member of the Council of Black Students, whose membership of 1847 included students and teachers from both races and from the South. A majority of the members of the Council had been arrested during the time of the strike as juveniles, and the majority had remained incarcerated for two days before being released from prison to serve as witnesses to class action for 1847 strike and hunger strike.[8]
She attended the University of Georgia State College and College of the Sacred Heart in Augusta, Georgia after college and studying sociology and medicine. At her senior year she attended Savannah College, where she received her M.S. in sociology from De La Salle University, and her law degree from the University of Southern Mississippi.[9]
Ella’s father, who was a Republican Congressman, would also be a Democrat.[10]
In her mid 20s her best friend, William Boyd, lived an impressive life, going to high school in Columbia County, Louisiana. In 1847 he married Ella Mary Baker while he was attending an 1847 party where he would spend time with her. William did not join the Council, as was usual, but was elected as a member.
As Ella’s friends grew more and more aware of what they called the “cult of her past,” Boyd became concerned that her children were being exposed to more and more of the cultural influences that had brought her into the world of poverty and violence. His primary goal in 1846 was to prevent her from gaining sympathy for being one of the oppressed people of Virginia.
In 1847 the Black Student Association, acting as a political body, held a gathering in Savannah, Georgia, to encourage the Black slave-owning world in the South.[11]
The meeting was held in a tent at a Baptist church at the site of the first Revolutionary War battle. The gathering was held at 7:30 p.m. in the tent, about 100 yards from the Church of Liberty on East 12th Street, which was designated a home for church attendance in 1847.[12]
On April 14, 1848 Ella, wearing a
Ella’s friends thought she would “become a good school girl, but the thing is, she’s only 16 now”.[4] There was already a stigma of a black woman as a delinquent or a loser in the community.[5] And after the first couple of years of school and living a typical life there was a fear of social stigma that began to creep into the everyday life of teenage girls.[6]
Toward the end of her junior year, as of 1847 she was a member of the school council, which was charged with fixing school attendance rates.[7] Ella and her friends, including her best friend, and other school members were also involved in the “Black Student Association” which was involved in getting black students to learn English and socialize. In the summer of 1847 the Black Student Association held a meeting with three members of the Council, the first meeting of which was organized in 1847 in a place called Cajun Place, in Cherokee Indian Country.
Ella was a member of the Council of Black Students, whose membership of 1847 included students and teachers from both races and from the South. A majority of the members of the Council had been arrested during the time of the strike as juveniles, and the majority had remained incarcerated for two days before being released from prison to serve as witnesses to class action for 1847 strike and hunger strike.[8]
She attended the University of Georgia State College and College of the Sacred Heart in Augusta, Georgia after college and studying sociology and medicine. At her senior year she attended Savannah College, where she received her M.S. in sociology from De La Salle University, and her law degree from the University of Southern Mississippi.[9]
Ella’s father, who was a Republican Congressman, would also be a Democrat.[10]
In her mid 20s her best friend, William Boyd, lived an impressive life, going to high school in Columbia County, Louisiana. In 1847 he married Ella Mary Baker while he was attending an 1847 party where he would spend time with her. William did not join the Council, as was usual, but was elected as a member.
As Ella’s friends grew more and more aware of what they called the “cult of her past,” Boyd became concerned that her children were being exposed to more and more of the cultural influences that had brought her into the world of poverty and violence. His primary goal in 1846 was to prevent her from gaining sympathy for being one of the oppressed people of Virginia.
In 1847 the Black Student Association, acting as a political body, held a gathering in Savannah, Georgia, to encourage the Black slave-owning world in the South.[11]
The meeting was held in a tent at a Baptist church at the site of the first Revolutionary War battle. The gathering was held at 7:30 p.m. in the tent, about 100 yards from the Church of Liberty on East 12th Street, which was designated a home for church attendance in 1847.[12]
On April 14, 1848 Ella, wearing a
After her graduation from Shaw University, Baker migrated to New York City on the eve of the Great Depression, determined to find an outlet for her intellectual curiosity and growing compassion for social justice. She was deeply moved by the terrible conditions she witnessed on the streets of Harlem during the 1930s; scenes of poverty, hunger, and desperation.
The first political organization she joined after moving to Harlem was the Young Negroes Cooperative League (YNCL), founded by writer George Schuyler in December 1930. The expressed purpose of the group was to gain economic power through consumer cooperation. The YNCL was headquartered in New York City. In 1931 Baker was elected to serve as the groups first national director. Another important experience that helped to shape Bakers evolving political consciousness during the Depression was her employment with the Workers Education Project (WEP) of the Works Progress Administration (WPA), a program designed to equip workers with basic literacy skills and to educate them about topics of concern to members of the work force. During the 1930s, Baker also began to grapple with the issue of womens equality and her own identity as an African-American woman. She supported and worked with various womens groups, such as the Womens Day Workers and Industrial League, a union for domestic workers; the Harlem Housewives Cooperative; and the Harlem YWCA. Baker refused to be relegated to a separate “womans sphere,” either personally or politically. She often