Ella Baker Community Organizer of the Civil Rights Movement [Hardcover]

In this beautifully written, perceptive, and engaging biography, J. Todd Moye introduces a new generation of Americans to Ella Baker, whose ideas and example inspired black and white activists during the Civil Rights years. ?Her conviction that social movements should be based on grass-roots involvement and group-centered leadership is as relevant today as it was a half century ago.Todd Moye's lively, engaging narrative balances vivid storytelling with thoughtful analysis for a compelling introduction to Ella Baker, arguably the most important leader-organizer-strategist of the 20th Century Black Freedom Struggle. Thanks to Moye's marvelous biography, many more people will know Baker and have a sense, not only of how essential she was to movements for racial justice and human rights, but how much we still have to learn from her.Ella Josephine Baker was among the most influential strategists of the most important social movement in modern US history, the civil rights movement. In this book, historian J. Todd Moye masterfully reconstructs Bakers life and contribution for a new generation of readers.Ella Josephine Baker (1903-1986) was among the most influential strategists of the most important social movement in modern US history, the Civil Rights Movement, yet most Americans have never heard of her. Behind the scenes, she organized on behalf of the major civil rights organizations of her daythe National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), the Southern Christian Leadership Council (SCLC), and the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC)among many other activist groups. As she once told an interviewer, [Y]ou didnt see me on television, you didnt see news stories about me. The kind of role that I tried to play was to pick up pieces or put pieces together out of which I hoped organization might come. My theory is, strong people dont need strong leaders.Rejecting charismatic leadership as a means of social change, Baker invented a flù