Ella Baker and the Black Freedom Movement

In 1940 Ella Baker joined the staff of the newly developed National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) as a field secretary. Marking the beginning of what would turn out to be decades of constant travel and time away from home, Baker traveled to Birmingham to recruit local activists and black leaders to join their chapter of the NAACP, providing them with resources and training to form their own group under the umbrella of the larger organization. The NAACP had the goal of a double victory, fighting “fascism abroad and racism at home” (105). Baker’s work encouraging black people in small towns across the South to confront white supremacy directly was grueling and stressful.

Baker frequently clashed with the leadership of the NAACP in seeking to make the organization inclusive and egalitarian. She viewed her struggle as a black woman as intimately tied to that of the poor and working class, and she sought a political philosophy that listened to and prioritized the work of local activists. She wanted local chapters to function more independently so they could respond to local problems as a united front. But as a black woman traveling alone in the Jim Crow South, she was frequently subject to racism and violence at the hands of whites.