Ella Baker and the Black Freedom Movement

Ransby starts the story of Baker’s life at a logical place: her childhood. Baker was born to middle-class parents and named after her grandmother, Ella Jo. Her parents, Anna Ross Baker and Blake Baker, married the same year the Supreme Court of the United States handed down the decision in Plessy v. Ferguson, a ruling the upheld “separate but equal” laws as constitutional, entrenching segregation in US law for another half a century. It is almost as though Baker was born simply to refute that one ruling.

Baker had two siblings, older brother Curtis and younger sister Maggie. The family was solidly middle class, with their mother believing such status made them, as black people, basically ambassadors for their race. Today such thought would be called “respectability politics,” but for Anna Ross Baker it was merely a way of preserving her life and ensuring that she put her best foot forward, even when faced with racism.

Anna Ross was no shrinking violet, however, and brought her children up to be deep thinkers and carers for others as part of their Christian faith. Baker was never without an example of women remaining strong while putting others first. Her mother worked in conjunction with the Southern Black Missionary Movement, viewing their work as a “lift as we climb” (18) type of movement.