Although
most people don't recognize her name, Ella Baker was one of the most influential
women in the civil rights movement, and one of its most important leaders. She
worked behind the scenes for fifty years for freedom and equal rights for Black
Americans and human rights for all people. In the early 1940s Ella Baker was a
key figure with the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People
and helped to organize the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, led by Martin
Luther King, Jr. Ella Baker believed in a grassroots model for change, rather
than looking to a great leader to lead the movement. She left the SLSC to help
young people form the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, a decentralized
grassroots organization, and helped to empower students to work for change. "Ella's
Song - We Who Believe in Freedom Cannot Rest", performed by Sweet Honey In The
Rock, has immortalized this unsung hero's life's work for a better world.
