Ella Baker and the Black Freedom Movement

Through her work in the South, Baker became connected to two important movements in Louisiana and Alabama: the United Christian Movement Inc. (UCMI) in Shreveport, LA, and the Alabama Christian Movement for Human Rights (ACMHR) headquartered in Birmingham, AL.

In Alabama Baker worked closely with a couple called Shuttlesworth, who were local leaders in the freedom movement. They founded the ACMHR and, as a result, a white mob firebombed their house, injuring two of their children. In working with the ACMHR to organize local protests, Baker continued to develop a philosophy of organizing that aligned with the rural and working-class poor. She found that there were two different visions in the movement: the dealmakers who went for incremental change, and troublemakers who “caused a ruckus” (218). Baker came to side more with the troublemakers.

In both Alabama and Louisiana Baker was organizing ahead of civil rights hearings with the federal government that aimed to expose the conditions in the South. Baker worked hard to organize for those hearings, calling local black communities to action. She was labeled an “outside agitator” by segregationists—an accusation that posited local black communities would have been totally OK with racist violence against them if not for the meddling of outsiders who didn’t know the community.