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Speaker 1: This Day in History Class is a production of I

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Speaker 1: Heart Radio. Hello Hello again. I'm Eves and you're listening

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Speaker 1: to This Day in History Class, where we examine the

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Speaker 1: past from the present. Today is December. The day was

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Speaker 1: December nineteen o three. Ella Josephine Baker was born in Norfolk, Virginia.

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Speaker 1: Baker is known for her organizing work in the fight

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Speaker 1: for black civil rights and human rights. Baker grew up

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Speaker 1: in Littleton, a small rural town in North Carolina. She

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Speaker 1: was the second of three children born to Blake Baker,

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Speaker 1: a ferry boat waiter, and Georgiana Baker, a teacher. Her

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Speaker 1: family and upbringing instilled in her a sense of communal responsibility,

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Speaker 1: historical awareness, pride, and rebellion. There were no secondary schools

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Speaker 1: in little Too, and so her parents sent her to

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Speaker 1: Raleigh to attend Shaw Boarding School. After high school, she

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Speaker 1: enrolled at Shaw University in Raleigh, where she majored in sociology.

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Speaker 1: During her time at Shaw, she already had social justice inclinations,

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Speaker 1: speaking up against restrictive school rules in She graduated from

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Speaker 1: Shaw University as valedictorian of her class and moved to

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Speaker 1: New York City. There she got jobs as a server

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Speaker 1: and factory worker, and her social and political consciousness grew

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Speaker 1: as she witnessed poverty and suffering in Harlem and the

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Speaker 1: effects of the Great Depression descended on the city. She

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Speaker 1: worked as a correspondent for black newspapers, and she helped

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Speaker 1: found the Young Negroes Cooperative League, which helped people gain

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Speaker 1: economic power by buying collectively. She became the organization's first

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Speaker 1: national director in nineteen thirty one. Throughout the nineteen thirties,

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Speaker 1: she was involved with many of their organizations, like the

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Speaker 1: Workers Education Project, part of the Work Progress Administration, which

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Speaker 1: hired her to teach consumer and labor education. She was

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Speaker 1: also involved with the Women's Day Workers in Industrial League,

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Speaker 1: the Harlem Housewives Cooperative, and the Harlem Young Women's Christian Association,

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Speaker 1: and she wrote about economic oppression. In five she and

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Speaker 1: Marville Cook co authored an expose on the exploitation of

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Speaker 1: black domestic workers. By the early nineteen forties, Baker had

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Speaker 1: become an assistant Field secretary and later national Field Secretary

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Speaker 1: for the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People,

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Speaker 1: or in Double A CP. She traveled around the South US,

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Speaker 1: organizing in Double A CP branches and starting membership drives.

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Speaker 1: Though she worked with the in Double A CP for

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Speaker 1: a while, she resigned from her post as director of

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Speaker 1: Branches in nineteen forty six. She was disillusioned with the

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Speaker 1: organization because it was so bureaucratic and because it relied

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Speaker 1: so heavily on legal approaches to fight discriminate nation. Baker

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Speaker 1: supported more control from the branches rather than the existing

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Speaker 1: top down approach. Around this time, she married Thomas Roberts

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Speaker 1: and took on the responsibility of raising her niece, Jacqueline,

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Speaker 1: but she still associated with the Double A c P

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Speaker 1: as president of the New York branch and was an

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Speaker 1: advisor to the organization's youth council. When activists in the

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Speaker 1: South were preparing for the Montgomery bus boycott, Baker, along

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Speaker 1: with A. Philip Randolph Bayard Rustin and Stanley Levison, founded

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Speaker 1: a group called in Friendship. In Friendships supported desegregation in

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Speaker 1: the South and provided financial assistance to the boycotts. In

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Speaker 1: the wake of the successful boycott's civil rights leaders formed

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Speaker 1: the Southern Christian Leadership Conference or s c l C.

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Speaker 1: Baker emerged as a leader who's organizing was integral to

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Speaker 1: its projects, and she became a director in the s

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Speaker 1: c l C. Though she coordinated the organization's voter rights

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Speaker 1: campaign and ran the office, she rejected its hierarchical, charismatic

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Speaker 1: leadership centered around Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. In favor

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Speaker 1: of group centered leadership. Also, women in the organization were

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Speaker 1: often relegated to administrative roles. Baker resigned from the SCLC

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Speaker 1: in nineteen sixty. She turned her attention to the sit

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Speaker 1: ins students were initiating in the South, and she helped

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Speaker 1: organize the Student Non Violent Coordinating Committee or SNAKE, which

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Speaker 1: led more sit ins, voter registration drives, and other civil

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Speaker 1: rights initiatives. Baker helped organize the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party,

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Speaker 1: a grassroots political organization that challenged the all white Mississippi

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Speaker 1: Democratic Party, and she joined the Southern Conference Educational Fund

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Speaker 1: and interracial organization that advocated for white support of racial justice.

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Speaker 1: Throughout the rest of her life, she remained committed to

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Speaker 1: championing civil and human rights, working with groups like the

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Speaker 1: Puerto Rican Solidarity Committee and the African National Congress. Baker

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Speaker 1: died in New York on her eighty third birthday. I'm

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Speaker 1: eas Jeff Code, and hopefully you know a little more

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Speaker 1: about history today than you did yesterday. If you're hungry

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Speaker 1: for more history, you can find us on Twitter, Facebook,

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Speaker 1: and Instagram at t d i h C Podcast, and

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Speaker 1: you can email us at this Day at I heart

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Speaker 1: media dot com. Thanks for going on this trip through

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Speaker 1: history with us. We'll see you again tomorrow with another episode.

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