Ella Josephine Baker was an African-American civil rights and human rights activist. She was a largely behind-the-scenes organizer whose career spanned more than five decades. Profoundly inspirational Ella Baker quotes will encourage you to think a little deeper than you usually would and broaden your perspective.
If you’re searching for quotes by prominent activists that perfectly capture what you’d like to say or just want to feel inspired yourself, browse through an amazing collection of quotes from Emma Goldman, powerful Gloria Steinem quotes and famous Fred Hampton quotes.
Famous Ella Baker Quotes
Oppressed people, whatever their level of formal education, have the ability to understand and interpret the world around them, to see the world for what it is, and move to transform it. Ella Baker
Give light and people will find the way. Ella Baker
Remember, we are not fighting for the freedom of the Negro alone, but for the freedom of the human spirit a larger freedom that encompasses all mankind. Ella Baker
We who believe in freedom cannot rest until it comes. Ella Baker
Singing alone is not enough; we need schools and learning. Ella Baker
In order to see where we are going, we not only must remember where we have been, but we must understand where we have been. Ella Baker
In order for us as poor and oppressed people to become part of a society that is meaningful, the system under which we now exist has to be radically changed. It means facing a system that does not lend itself to your needs and devising means by which you change that system. Ella Baker
I have always thought that what is needed is the development of people who are interested not in being leaders as much as in developing leadership in others. Ella Baker
I have always felt it was a handicap for oppressed peoples to depend so largely upon a leader, because unfortunately in our culture, the charismatic leader usually becomes a leader because he has found a spot in the public limelight. Ella Baker
Until the killing of black men, black mothers’ sons, becomes as important to the rest of the country as the killing of a white mother’s sons, we who believe in freedom cannot rest until this happens. Ella Baker
Even if segregation is gone, we will still need to be free; we will still have to see that everyone has a job. Even if we can all vote, but if people are still hungry, we will not be free. Ella Baker
Oppressed people, whatever their level of formal education, have the ability to understand and interpret the world around them, to see the world for what it is, and move to transform it. Ella Baker
Remember, we are not fighting for the freedom of the Negro alone, but for the freedom of the human spirit, a larger freedom that encompasses all of mankind. Ella Baker
You didn’t see me on television, you didn’t see news stories about me. The kind of role that I tried to play was to pick up pieces or put together pieces out of which I hoped organization might come. My theory is, strong people don’t need strong leaders. Ella Baker
Until the killing of black men, black mothers sons, becomes as important to the rest of the country as the killing of a white mother’s sons, we who believe in freedom cannot rest until this happens. Ella Baker
In order for us as poor and oppressed people to become part of a society that is meaningful, the system under which we now exist has to be radically changed. It means facing a system that does not lend its self to your needs and devising means by which you change that system. Ella Baker
In order to see where we are going, we not only must remember where we have been, but we must understand where we have been. Ella Baker
Give light, and people will find the way. Ella Baker
We who believe in freedom cannot rest until it comes. Ella Baker
I didn’t break the rules, but I challenged the rules. Ella Baker
The struggle is eternal. The tribe increases. Somebody else carries on. Ella Baker
The major job was getting people to understand that they had something within their power that they could use, and it could only be used if they understood what was happening and how group action could counter violence. Ella Baker
This may only be a dream of mine, but I think it can be made real. Ella Baker
My theory is, strong people don’t need strong leaders. Ella Baker
I have always thought that what is needed is the development of people who are interested not in being leaders as much as in developing leadership in others. Ella Baker
There is also the danger in our culture that because a person is called upon to give public statements and is acclaimed by the establishment, such a person gets to the point of believing that he is the movement. Ella Baker
You didn’t see me on television, you didn’t see news stories about me. The kind of role that I tried to play was to pick up pieces or put together pieces out of which I hoped organization might come. Ella Baker
One of the things that has to be faced is the process of waiting to change the system, how much we have got to do to find out who we are, where we have come from and where we are going. Ella Baker
I didn’t break the rules, but I challenged the rules. Ella Baker
I have always felt it was a handicap for oppressed peoples to depend so largely upon a leader, because unfortunately in our culture, the charismatic leader usually becomes a leader because he has found a spot in the public limelight. Ella Baker
The major job was getting people to understand that they had something within their power that they could use, and it could only be used if they understood what was happening and how group action could counter violence. Ella Baker
I had known, number one, that there would never be any role for me in the leadership capacity with SCLC. Why? First, I’m a woman. Also, I’m not a minister. And second, I am a person that feels that I have to maintain some degree of personal integrity and be my own barometer of what is important and what is not. Ella Baker
I’ve never credited myself with a professional life. But, basically, it has been that. Ella Baker
Martin Luther King wasn’t, basically, the kind of person certainly at the stage that I knew him closest wasn’t the kind of person you could engage in dialogue with, certainly, if the dialogue questioned the almost exclusive rightness of his position. Ella Baker
In 32 we organized the Young Negroes Cooperative League and had some degree of success in terms of establishing stores and certainly buying clubs in various sections of the country. I was designated as I don’t know what exactly I believe it was director. I’m not sure what it was, but it had to do with getting out the necessary mail and all of that organization. Ella Baker
Strong people do not need strong leaders. Ella Baker
There is also the danger in our culture that because a person is called upon to give public statements and is acclaimed by the establishment, such a person gets to the point of believing that he is the movement. Ella Baker
I began to feel that my greatest sense of success would raise the level of masses of people, rather than the individual being accepted by the Establishment. So, this kind of personal thinking, combined with, say, even the little bit more radical thinking because at one time the pacifist movement was a very radical concept. Ella Baker
I began to feel that my greatest sense of success would raise the level of masses of people, rather than the individual being accepted by the Establishment. So, this kind of personal thinking, combined with, say, even the little bit more radical thinking because at one time the pacifist movement was a very radical concept. Ella Baker
I’m sure, out of the context here of Stanley Levison’s relationship with the Jewish liberal forces, that had made contributions. I remember one such contribution before they moved from Montgomery. An associate in the real estate business with Stanley had lost a son in the war, and she wanted to do something in memory of him. So, she made available certain monies to be used by the emerging leadership there in Montgomery. I’m sure other individuals did. Ella Baker
I think personally, I’ve always felt that the Association NAACP got itself hung up in what I call its legal successes. Having had so many outstanding legal successes, it definitely seemed to have oriented its thinking in the direction that the way to achieve was through the courts. Ella Baker
I don’t think that the leadership of Montgomery was prepared to capitalize, let’s put it, on the projection that had come out of the Montgomery situation. Certainly, they had not reached the point of developing an organizational format for the expansion of it. So discussions emanated, to a large extent, from up this way. Ella Baker
My theory is, strong people don’t need strong leaders. Ella Baker
During the Depression years, I began to identify to some extent with the unemployed, the organization for the unemployed at that period. Ella Baker
One of the things that has to be faced is the process of waiting to change the system, how much we have got to do to find out who we are, where we have come from and where we are going. Ella Baker
I, perhaps, at that stage, had the kind of ambition that others may have had; you know, namely based on the concept that if you were trained the world was out there waiting for you to provide a certain kind of leadership and give you an opportunity. But with the Depression, I began to see that there were certain social forces over which the individual had very little control. Ella Baker
I had known, number one, that there would never be any role for me in the leadership capacity with SCLC. Why? First, I’m a woman. Also, I’m not a minister. And second, I am a person that feels that I have to maintain some degree of personal integrity and be my own barometer of what is important and what is not. Ella Baker
When I came out of the Depression, I came out of it with a different point of view as to what constituted success. And that was even just even personal success. Ella Baker
Give light and people will find the way. Ella Baker
I think the reasons for not selecting persons like the Reverend Borders and John Wesley Dobbs were, in my book rather obvious reasons: because they were people who were basically oriented in the direction of the established method of not confronting the power structure, but trying to elicit concessions by various and sundry means of, well, let’s call it accommodating leadership. Ella Baker
In order to see where we are going, we not only must remember where we have been, but we must understand where we have been. Ella Baker
My association with the Southern Christian Leadership Conference is sort of predated by an effort that we were a part of here in New York City regarding the reaction to this 1954 Supreme Court Brown v Board of Education decision. Ella Baker
Strong people don’t need strong leaders. Ella Baker
I’ve never credited myself with a professional life. But, basically, it has been that. Ella Baker
When I came out of the Depression, I came out of it with a different point of view as to what constituted success. Ella Baker
I had been friendly with people who were in the Communist party and all the rest of the Left forces, which were oriented in the direction of mass action. Ella Baker
Singing alone is not enough; we need schools and learning. Ella Baker
I was born in Norfolk, Virginia. I began school there, the first year of public school. When I was 7, the family shifted back to North Carolina. I grew up in North Carolina; had my schooling through the college level in North Carolina. Ella Baker
The struggle is eternal. The tribe increases. Somebody else carries on. Ella Baker
I guess the best way to describe that would be to connect with the fact that I came out of college just before the big Depression, and I came to New York. Ella Baker
With the Depression, I began to see that there were certain social forces over which the individual had very little control. Ella Baker
This In Friendship out of it came certain connections with the liberal labor establishment. Among the personalities that were involved were Bayard Rustin and a person from the American Jewish Congress, Stanley Levinson. Ella Baker
People cannot be free until there is enough work in this land to give everybody a job. Ella Baker
I went to what is known as, and was at that time, too, Shaw University in Raleigh, North Carolina. In fact, because of the lack of public school facilities, I began there. I began boarding school at the high school level; in fact, a year below the high school level. Ella Baker
There is also the danger in our culture that because a person is called upon to give public statements and is acclaimed by the establishment, such a person gets to the point of believing that he is the movement. Ella Baker
I suppose that the first organized effort that might be considered something of civil rights was the Young Negroes Cooperative League. Now, this offers certain contradictions at this point, perhaps, because it was stimulated by the writings of George Schayler who, at this point, is considered an arch conservative, I understand. Ella Baker
Well, my greatest fling has still to be flung, because as far as I’m concerned I was never working for an organization. I have always tried to work for a cause. Ella Baker
My mother didn’t feel very satisfied about the English background that I had received in the public schools in Littleton. So, she insisted that I take a year under the high school level. So, I was in boarding school nine years. Ella Baker
And there’s a lot of difference between the development of single individuals as leaders and the development of leadership, with leadership concepts. Ella Baker
Both my parents came from North Carolina, in Warren County. My mother had a feeling that there was greater culture in North Carolina than obtained in Norfolk, Virginia, plus the fact she just didn’t like the lowland lying climate there. Ella Baker
Basically I believe human beings want to live in a decent world. Ella Baker
