- unitid
-
{"value"=>"20899", "type"=>"local_mss"}
{"value"=>"Sc MG 630", "type"=>"local_call"}
{"value"=>"b16022773", "type"=>"local_b"}
- unitdate
-
{"value"=>"1926-1986", "type"=>"inclusive", "normal"=>"1926/1986"}
- unittitle
-
{"value"=>"Ella Baker papers"}
- physdesc
-
{"format"=>"structured", "physdesc_components"=>[{"name"=>"extent", "value"=>"14 boxes", "unit"=>"containers"}, {"name"=>"extent", "value"=>"5.58 linear feet", "unit"=>"linear_feet"}]}
- repository
-
{"value"=>"<span class=\"corpname\">Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, Manuscripts, Archives and Rare Books Division</span>"}
- abstract
-
{"value"=>"The Ella Baker papers provide a snapshot of Baker's life as an activist and visionary for a variety of progressive organizations in the United States, from the 1930s through the 1980s. Documented here are the organizations and individuals that were central to Baker's network such as George Schulyer, The Young Women's Christian Association, In Friendship, A. Phillip Randolph, and Bayard Rustin. The collection, however, does not document her personal life nor does it fully capture her philosophy or political ideas."}
- langmaterial
-
{"value"=>"English"}
- origination
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{"value"=>"Baker, Ella, 1903-1986", "type"=>"persname"}
- bioghist
-
{"value"=>"<p>Ella Baker was a behind-the-scene strategist in many of the American progressive movements of the 20th century. Baker's career as an activist, leader (a title she would never have used to identify herself) and grassroots community organizer spanned from the late 1920s to the time of her death in 1986. The projects, organizations and movements she worked for, directed, initiated, or supported included the consumer education movement via the conduit of the Young Negroes' Co-operative League (YNCL) during the Great Depression era of the 1930s; the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) in the 1940s; the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) in the 1950s and the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) in the 1960s; along with some fifty other entities.</p> <p>Ella Josephine Baker was born in Norfolk, Virginia on December 13, 1903, the second of three children of Georgianna Ross, a school teacher, health care worker and mid-wife and Blake Baker a waiter on the ferry line between Norfolk and Washington. When she was eight years old, her family moved to Littleton, North Carolina where her mother grew up and her maternal relatives continued to live. At age 15, Baker became a high school student at Shaw University's boarding school and later went to the University she was valedictorian for both of her graduating classes. Following graduation in 1927 she moved to Harlem, which remained her home until her death on December 13, 1986. In 1937 Baker married T. J. Robinson after a 10-year courtship which began at Shaw while they were both students there.</p> <p>Soon after her arrival in Harlem, at the end of the Harlem Renaissance and just before the Wall Street crash of 1929 and the Great Depression, Baker became the mentee of George Schuyler, a black journalist and black intellectual. Schuyler was a pioneer of an early response in the black community to the Great Depression that promoted the organization of the economic resources of the community into consumer co-operatives (bulk buying clubs). He founded the Young Negro Cooperative League (YNCL) which aimed to organize and promote co-operatives, as well as educate the community about the economic advantages of co-operatives. He also ran a national black news bureau for which Baker was a contributing writer. Additionally, from 1929-1931, she worked as a staff editor for two black newspapers in New York City. In 1931, Schuyler selected Baker to be the executive director of the Young Negroes' Co-operative League. He encouraged her to use consumer education a platform to organize the poor in Harlem. In the mid-1930s she would again use his advice when she was the National Director of the YNCL. At its inception in 1931, the YNCL, with the commitment of twenty-five men and women throughout the United States, set out to enact a five year plan that was destined to emancipate blacks economically by 1936. The organization promoted consumer co-operatives as the most effective mechanism to bring about \"a revolution of black economic and political power\". With economic emancipation as the primary task, the YNCL was comprehensive in its vision, developing educational, mutual defense, medical, and political programs. The effectiveness of Baker's work at led to a scholarship from the Cooperative League of America to attend the Brookwood Labor College in July 1931.</p> <p>There, her studies focused on consumer economics and consumer education. This was the first scholarship awarded to a black person by the League. Baker joined the staff of the New York Public Library Adult Education Program at the 135th Street Branch in 1934. During her time there she developed consumer education and literacy programs for young mothers. The classes were held in the St. Nicholas Avenue Park and the Young Women's Christian Association on West 137 Street. In 1936, Baker was hired by the Works Progress Administration (WPA) as a consumer education instructor. She worked with this project until the WPA folded in 1941, by which time she had been promoted to the position of supervising educator for projects relating to consumer education. From 1937-1940, Baker worked for the National Association of Consumers as a fund-raiser and was the education and publicity officer for the Harlem's Own Co-operative. The positions she held and many promotions she received in a brief span of time, are indications that Baker built a reputation of being an effective consumer and co-operative educator and a talented organizer.</p> <p>In 1938 while working for the WPA Baker was advised by Schuyler to apply to the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People for the position of youth director, however she did not get the job. Two years later she was asked to reapply for the same position by Rev. James Robinson, the out-going youth director. Again the position was awarded to someone else, although, this time the selection committee informed Baker that they considered her the appropriate candidate for the position of assistant field secretary. Baker accepted the position on a six-month trial basis in February 1941 and remained employed with the NAACP until 1946. In 1943 she was appointed, without her knowledge, to the position of director of Branches. During her tenure at the NAACP, Baker encouraged local leadership and grassroots initiative, and worked to change the culture and image of the organization, to one that appealed to all classes.</p> <p>In 1946 Baker accepted the offer to lead the fund-raising campaign of the New York Urban League. After resigning from the position of Director of Branches, she continued to work with and organize for the NAACP in various capacities, including the New York branch, where served as the chairperson of education committee. Baker resigned as President of the New York Branch of the NAACP in 1953 to run for the New York City Council on the Liberal Party ticket. She lost to her opponent, Earl Brown, who held both the Democratic and Republican parties' nomination. After her defeat Baker returned to the New York Branch of the NAACP as chair of a special committee.</p> <p>The period between 1946 to 1957, following Baker's resignation from the NAACP, was one of personal loss for Baker. Her sister died of cancer in 1947 and in response to the loss Baker joined the staff of the New York Cancer Society in the education and out-reach office. Her marriage also ended during this period.</p> <p>As the civil rights movement began to heat up following the Brown vs Board of Education case, Baker, civil rights activist Bayard Rustin; labor leader A. Phillip Randolph and attorney Stanley Levison along with a host of religious and labor groups, formed the organization, In Friendship.</p> <p>This coalition aimed to rally financial support around the struggle for desegregation of Southern schools, to support victims of \"segregationist vigilantes\", the Montgomery, Alabama bus boycott and voter rights in the South. In Friendship held fund raising events in Madison Square Garden in 1956 to help pay for the Mississippi Improvement Association's legal fees and to purchase new vehicles for the car pool during the Montgomery Bus boycott. Remaining closely connected to the people she had met when she lived and traveled throughout the South as field secretary for the NAACP, Baker was well informed of the ongoing grassroots organizing and emerging struggles taking place there. It was this knowledge that led her to conceive the idea that the black Church in the South needed to provide organizational structure to the desegregation movement. The idea was well received and supported and led to the A series of consultations in formulation of nonviolent civil rights action strategies and the formation of Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC). SCLC was officially launched with a two-day meeting on January 10 and 11, 1957 in Atlanta, Georgia.</p> <p>Baker moved back to Atlanta in 1958, having accepted the position of executive secretary of SCLC with the responsibility of organizing the general operations, developing administrative and managerial procedures for the office. She considered this her most significant undertaking since resigning from the NAACP and worked with intense focus and vision to create a work environment that supported the mission of the organization and placing it on the national radar as a nonviolent, civil rights, leadership organization. Her main project while at SCLC was the 'Crusade for Citizenship' campaign which focused on educating blacks about voter rights and voter registration. This was one of SCLC's initial projects, which aimed to mobilize blacks in the South to vote, however due to competition from other voter registration projects at the NAACP, the Crusade had limited success. Reflecting during her later years on her tenure at SCLC, Baker was of the opinion that her vision for SCLC was never fully realized due primarily to internal resistance from both the members and the leadership of the organization.</p> <p>In the closing months of her work with SCLC the student sit-ins throughout the South exploded onto the national scene. Baker, the visionary, understood that the youth would be the cutting edge of the new freedom movement, however their activities would have to be strategic and organized. Within three months of the initial student desegregation sit-in, Baker convinced SCLC to take the lead and sponsor a meeting for the youth leaders in the South. With funds from SCLC she organized a conference at Shaw University for the students to layout their own plan action. This conference held during April 1960 provided the first opportunity for the independent and isolated sit-in actions to be coalesced and structured. SCLC as well as Council of Racial Equality (CORE) and the NAACP appealed to the students to join their ranks. In October of 1960, after a series of gatherings the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) was launched. Though Baker never held an official position with SNCC, as one of its founders she remained the political adviser, role model, fund-raiser, intellectual and political mentor and she remained the activist mentor of the organization throughout its existence. After leaving SCLC in 1960, Baker took a position in the southern regional student office of the Young Women's Christian Association. From this vantage-point she proved to be an invaluable financial resource to the veterans of the student movement when they returned to the classroom.</p> <p>For eleven years, 1963-1974, Baker remained actives in various organizations. In 1963 she served as a consultant to the Southern Conference Educational Fund, from this position she was able to direct financial support to the workers of SNCC. In 1964 she was head of the Washington, D. C. and Atlantic City, NJ offices of the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party. Baker then became a consultant to the Executive Council of the Episcopal Church. A board member of the Puerto Rican Solidarity Committee, Baker gave a major speech for the at Madison Square Garden in New York City, in 1974.</p> <p>Ella Baker never officially retired from public life. In her later years she stayed closer to home in Harlem and continued to give speeches. In her lifetime former members of SNCC honored Baker. Among them was Joanne Grant, who produced the documentary film \"Fundi, \" 1981 and later wrote the first biography of Baker.</p> <p>Bibliography:</p> <p>Joanne Grant. Ella Baker: Freedom Bound, (New York: John Wiley & Sons, 1998)</p> <p>Barbara Ransby. Ella Baker and the Black freedom movement: a radical democratic vision. (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2003)</p>"}
- scopecontent
-
{"value"=>"<p>The Ella Baker Papers provide a snapshot of her life as an activist and visionary for a variety of progressive organizations in the United States, from the 1930s through the 1980s. Documented here are the organizations and individuals that were central to Baker's network such as George Schulyer, The Young Women's Christian Association, In Friendship, A. Phillip Randolph, and Bayard Rustin. The collection, however, does not document her personal life nor does it fully capture her philosophy or political ideas.</p>"}
{"value"=>"<p class='list-head'>The Ella Baker papers are arranged in eight series:</p>\n<ul class='arrangement series-descriptions'>\n<li><div class='series-title'><a href='/scm/20899#c1117675'>Personal Papers</a></div>\n<div class='series-date'>1927-1980</div>\n<div class='series-extent'>.4 linear feet</div>\n<div class='series-description'><p>Series contains very little biographical and personal information about Baker. There are five telegrams (1927-1935) from T. J. Robinson, Baker's future husband and fellow graduate from Shaw University; two essays written while Baker was an undergraduate student at Shaw University - The Challenge of the Age and the Negro Youth and The Challenge of the Age and the Youth of the Land; and miscellaneous personal correspondence (1934-1980). The bulk of the material in this series is undated.</p> <p>Filed with the Personal Papers are three folders of research material collected by Baker biographer, Joanne Grant, while working on the biography Ella Baker: Freedom Bound (1998) and the documentary film, Fundi: The Story of Ella Baker, which she wrote, produced and directed. Included in the research files are transcripts of interviews with Baker, index cards with research notes relating to the Baker family and Baker's academic background, as well as chapter drafts. Biographical materials on George Schuyler, along with photocopies from the Martin Luther King Jr. Papers at Boston University and photocopies from the records of the NAACP-National office at the Library of Congress, also gathered by Joanne Grant for this project, can be found here. Some oversized photocopies from the NAACP organizational records and memorandum are filed with the oversized printed materials in Box 14.</p></div></li><li><div class='series-title'><a href='/scm/20899#c1117695'>Co-Operatives and Consumer Education</a></div>\n<div class='series-date'>1930-1975</div>\n<div class='series-extent'>.4 linear feet</div>\n<div class='series-description'><p>Series contains undated transcripts of interviews (Box 2, Folder 2) that appear to have been conducted by Joanne Grant, in which Baker discusses her work in the area of consumer education during the 1930s as well as Baker's hand-written notes (1917-1918) on consumer education. Filed here also is correspondence, writings, flyers and printed material of the Co-operative League (1931-1940), the Young Negroes Co-operative League, Harlem's Own Co-operative, where Ella Baker worked as the Education and Publicity Officer, and the National Association of Consumers. The items relating to the consumer education program of the Works Progress Administration consists of memoranda, flyers and announcements for a variety of programs, forums and fundraising events promoting co-operatives and consumer education. Of note are: a memo from Ella Baker titled \"Qualifications Desired in Teachers of Consumer Education\" to Mr. Gerdy, the Director of the Education Division of the Works Progress Administration in New York City; and a 5-year action plan for the economic empowerment of the black community, written by George Schuyler.</p></div></li><li><div class='series-title'><a href='/scm/20899#c1117709'>National Association for The Advancement Of Colored People</a></div>\n<div class='series-date'>1936-1961</div>\n<div class='series-extent'>.8 linear feet</div>\n<div class='series-description'><p>Series is divided into two sub-series, National Office and Branches.</p></div></li><li><div class='series-title'><a href='/scm/20899#c1117751'>Southern Christian Leadership Conference</a></div>\n<div class='series-date'>1956-1968</div>\n<div class='series-extent'>.2 linear feet</div>\n<div class='series-description'><p>The bulk of this series consists of correspondence (1956-1963) and memoranda (1958-1960). Among the items housed here are letters between Ella Baker and A. Phillip Randolph, International President, Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters, relating to a report prepared by the SCLC on the violence, intimidation and reprisals experienced by civil rights leaders in the South and the press release announcing the Youth Leadership Retreat, March 2, 1960 from which the Student Non-violent Co-ordinating Committee emerged, along with an article from Harper's Weekly \"The Dangerous Road before MLK\" by James Baldwin. A few 1958 affidavits of voters from Jefferson County, Alabama that include a 14 page statement written by Baker that she obtained from Mary Lou Thomas documenting the challenges Thomas encountered when she attempted to register to vote in the 1958 Keithville, Louisiana elections. Also included area two page letter to New York City Mayor Robert F. Wagner from Nathan H. Schwerner, the father of slain civil rights worker Michael Schwerner and letters exchanged between Baker and Stanley D. Levison. There are also two copies of the SCLC constitution and by-laws.</p></div></li><li><div class='series-title'><a href='/scm/20899#c1117763'>Student Non-Violent Co-Ordinating Committee</a></div>\n<div class='series-date'>1960-1976</div>\n<div class='series-extent'>1.2 linear feet</div>\n<div class='series-description'><p>Series contains the field reports (1960-1963) that document the daily routine and the challenges faced by the SNCC field workers as they attempted to do community organizing throughout the South. An undated paper by Mike Miller proposing 'An Internal Education for SNCC' presents an envisioned role for SNCC as well as the challenges to the organization. Testimony, affidavits, an interview of Stokely Carmichael by William A. Price, a staff writer for the National Guardian dated (1966), along with undated items in the brochures and flyers folder, provide a topical history of SNCC. Carmichael had been a SNCC organizer for freedom elections in Lowndes County, Alabama before being appointed Chairman of SNCC. There is also a copy of a speech by Carmichael in 1967 on the issue of Vietnam. There are memos and fund-raising appeal letters (1963-1967) from the New York City- based supporters called Friends of SNCC, a group of New York City based supporters. A folder on Hubert \"Rap\" Brown, (1964-1976) folder contains some information about his tenure as chairman and his multi-state arrest and eventual convictions during this time. Hubert \"Rap\" Brown, Carmichael's successor as chairman of SNCC, contains some information about his tenure as chairman and his multi-state arrest and eventual convictions during this time. Efforts by the New York SNCC office to gather support for the Mississippi Summer Project in 1964 is documented here. There are fact sheets, fund-raising appeals and \"materials needed\" lists included in the Summer Project material. Oversized photocopies from <span class=\"title\">The Movement</span> are filed with the oversized printed materials in Box 14.</p></div></li><li><div class='series-title'><a href='/scm/20899#c1117817'>Other Organizations</a></div>\n<div class='series-date'>1930s-1980s</div>\n<div class='series-extent'>1.6 linear feet</div>\n<div class='series-description'><p>This series most effectively demonstrates the expanse of Baker's activism, organizing skills and political savvy in that it contains folders for thirty plus organizations in which her involvement extended beyond membership.</p></div></li><li><div class='series-title'><a href='/scm/20899#c1117879'>General</a></div>\n</li><li><div class='series-title'><a href='/scm/20899#c1117920'>Printed Material</a></div>\n<div class='series-date'>1930s-1980s</div>\n<div class='series-extent'>1.4 linear feet</div>\n<div class='series-description'><p>Series contains published and unpublished articles, monographs and manuals about movements, causes and grassroots organizing. Organizational newspapers and newspaper clippings related to some of the many areas of Baker's work are housed here.</p></div></li></ul>\n", "type"=>"arrangement"}
- arrangement
-
{"value"=>"<p>Organized into seven series: I. Personal Papers; II. Cooperatives and Consumer Education; III. National Association for the Advancement of Colored People; IV. Southern Christian Leadership Conference; V. Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee; VI. Other Organizations; VII. Printed Material</p>", "supress_display"=>true}
- acqinfo
-
{"value"=>"<p>Donated by Jacqueline Brockington</p>"}
- separatedmaterial
-
{"value"=>"<p>The item(s) listed below have been sent to the division indicated, either to be retained or disposed of there. Any items that should receive special disposition are clearly marked.</p> <p>Schomburg Photographs and Print Division:</p> <p>4 B&W photographs: 3 (8X10) and 1 (5 X 7)</p>"}
- processinfo
-
{"value"=>"<p>Processed by Nurah-Rosalie P. Jeter, 2003</p>"}
- sponsor
-
{"value"=>"Home to Harlem Project, funded by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation"}
- revisiondesc
-
{"value"=>"This finding aid was updated by Allison Hughes.", "date"=>"2021 March 9"}
{"value"=>"This finding aid was updated by Denise Mantey.", "date"=>"2025 January 27"}
- date_start
-
1926
- keydate
-
1926
- date_end
-
1986
- date_inclusive_start
-
1926
- date_inclusive_end
-
1986
- prefercite
-
{"value"=>"[Item], Ella Baker papers, Sc MG 630, Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, Manuscripts, Archives and Rare Books Division, The New York Public Library"}