Library Journal
"Ransby's is a remarkable biography worthy of her remarkable subject."
The Nation, January 12, 2004
"Moving and invaluable."
Book Description
One of the most important African American leaders of the twentieth century and perhaps the most influential woman in the civil rights movement, Ella Baker (1903-1986) was an activist whose remarkable career spanned fifty years and touched thousands of lives. A gifted grassroots organizer, Baker shunned the spotlight in favor of vital behind-the-scenes work that helped power the black freedom struggle. She was a national officer and key figure in the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, one of the founders of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, and a prime mover in the creation of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee. Baker made a place for herself in predominantly male political circles that included W. E. B. DuBois, Thurgood Marshall, and Martin Luther King Jr., all the while maintaining relationships with a vibrant group of women, students, and activists both black and white. In this deeply researched biography, Barbara Ransby chronicles Baker's long and rich political career as an organizer, an intellectual, and a teacher, from her early experiences in depression-era Harlem to the civil rights movement of the 1950s and 1960s. Ransby shows Baker to be a complex figure whose radical, democratic worldview, commitment to empowering the black poor, and emphasis on group-centered, grassroots leadership set her apart from most of her political contemporaries. Beyond documenting an extraordinary life, the book paints a vivid picture of the African American fight for justice and its intersections with other progressive struggles worldwide across the twentieth century.
About the Author
Barbara Ransby is associate professor of African American studies and history at the University of Illinois at Chicago.
Ella Baker and the Black Freedom Movement: A Radical Democratic Vision (Gender and American Culture Series) FROM THE PUBLISHER
"Fiercely independent and intensely committed to democracy, Ella Baker was a gifted grassroots organizer who shunned the spotlight in favor of vital behind-the-scenes work that helped power the black freedom struggle. She was a national officer and key figure in the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People and, along with Martin Luther King, Jr., one of the founders of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference. Baker made a place for herself in male-dominated political circles that included King, W. E. B. Du Bois, Thurgood Marshall, and A. Philip Randolph, all the while nurturing political relationships with women, students, and activists - both black and white - across organizational and ideological boundaries. Baker's most notable political accomplishment was her unique role as the main political adviser to the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee in the early 1960s. A committed teacher, she also served as an intellectual mentor to a new generation of leaders such as Bob Moses, Julian Bond, Marian Wright Edelman, Connie Curry, and Eleanor Holmes Norton." In this biography, Barbara Ransby chronicles Baker's political career, from her political awakening in the vibrant atmosphere of 1930s Harlem to her work against economic injustice and political repression in the 1970s. Ransby shows Baker to be a complex figure whose radical, democratic, humanistic worldview, commitment to empowering the black poor, and emphasis on group-centered, grassroots leadership set her apart from most of her political contemporaries.
FROM THE CRITICS
The Chicago Tribune
[Ransby's] passionate and demanding book offers a striking, thorough exposition of Baker's expansive, radical, humanist vision.
Womens Review of Books
[An] excellent biograph[y] based on extensive research into manuscript collections, personal interviews, and secondary sources. . . . [A] significant biograph[y] of [a] significant wom[an]. . . . Show[s] what strong, dedicated women could do for social change during decades when women weren't supposed to do anything but support their husbands and care for their children. . . . Not only teach[es] us about the past but warn[s] us about a possible future.
Black Issues Book Review
Ensures that all who wish to know about Baker's tireless work can find a detailed account in one volume.
The Crisis
The strength of Ransby's work is in her detailed accounting of Baker's political life, accompanied by an analysis of Black struggle in the 20th century.
Library Journal
From her birth in Norfolk, VA, to her radicalism as a Harlem intellectual in the 1930s, Ella Jo Baker (1903-86) learned to hold fast to her roots and grab the belly of the beasts of racism and classism while fending off the confining clutches of sexism. So argues African American studies historian Ransby (Univ. of Illinois, Chicago). Baker, she reveals, had to fight to be heard in her work in the NAACP in the 1940s, in New York City local politics in the 1950s, and in the civil rights struggles of the 1960s and 1970s. Ever the teacher of community and individual empowerment, Baker toiled at helping people help themselves in a personal and organizational challenge she carried to the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (of which she was a founder), Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, and the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party. Shunning reductive summary, Ransby offers the grit and gleam of Baker's practical humanist vision of participatory democracy aimed at the collective, transformative work of dismantling race, gender, and class privilege. Ransby's is a remarkable biography worthy of her remarkable subject. Essential for all biography, civil rights, community organizing, feminism, and 20th-century U.S. or black history collections.-Thomas J. Davis, Arizona State Univ., Tempe Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information.
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