Essay On Ella Baker

Give light and people will find the way, Said Ella Baker. She was a woman, who even in the darkest hour, gave light to people everywhere. Being a Civil Rights activist in the 1930’s, she was one of the leading figures in the Civil Rights Movement. She dedicated her life to fighting for freedom and equality, and she deserves to be recognized worldwide.

Known as the “Empress Of Blues”, Bessie Smith was said to have revolutionized the vocal end of Blues Music. She showed a lot of pride as an independent African-American woman. Her style in performance and lyrics often reflected her lifestyle. Bessie Smith was one of the first female jazz artists, and she paved the way for many musicians who followed.

The Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) and the Black Panther Party (BPP) are two of the most influential organizational groups. They both fought for desegregation and stood for justice. They fought day in and day out to get equal social, economic and political rights for African Americans. During this time of desegregation, lynching, organized hate crimes organization such as the KKK and police brutality caused African Americans to protested and stand up for what they deserved. The SCLC was created in 1957 and believed that they could get their voices heard without violence. Bayard Rustin and Ella Baker along with Martian Luther King organized the protest in Alabama, the Montgomery Bus Boycott. They also joined local movements

She has risen from a poor background and was ranked the richest African American of the 20th Century, the greatest black philanthropist in American history and was once the world’s only black billionaire. She is also known as the most influential woman in the world, both older generations and young.

One of the most influential and inspirational women of all time was Rosa Parks. By one action she helped change the lives of a majority of African Americans and more importantly society as a whole. Rosa Parks sparked the attention of America when she refused to settle for the black (lower class)standards. Not only did she help change the lives for many African Americans but she helped equality for all men and women in the United States. By one brave women our world will be forever thankful.

The civil rights movement broadened the definition of leadership to include women, and left an impression of women as powerful and determined activists. Jo An Robinson and Ella Baker are just two of the many women who were able to take charge and make an impact on the movement. Robinson led the Women’s Political Council, which plotted strategy for a one-day bus boycott in Montgomery following Rosa Parks’ arrest. The Council was able to recruit clergy to lend their churches for mass meetings and was able to tap into a new minister in town, Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr. to lead the Montgomery Improvement Association, which would coordinate the larger Montgomery Bus Boycotts . It was the women that organized this key moment in the civil rights movement – which was, in fact, spurred by a woman, Rosa Parks, refusing to take her seat in the back of the bus. Ella Baker was similarly key in the Civil Rights movement. She was instrumental in organizing a conference of student sit-in activists in 1960, forming the beginning of what would become the SNCC. By educating and fostering leadership, Baker helped members to see themselves as potential leaders – regardless of race or gender. That does not mean that leadership in the

Throughout her life, Wells was militant in her demands for equality and justice for African-Americans, and insisted that the African-American community must win justice through its own efforts. She

The most common ways women of different ethnicities were held back were by being barred from certain jobs. Black, and Latina women were not allowed to work in the southern textile industry, or hold a secretarial job like many white women did. Instead they were forced to become maids, and laundresses. (Schaller 594) Another example of the lack of improvement for women in minorities is the percentage of young Italian girls who were withdrawn from school, in order for them to help support their family. Roughly 90% left school at the age of 14 to find work. (Schaller 629) Even though white women were steadily making progress towards equality with their own organizations, african american women did not see such immediate progress. So they decided to create their own similar groups such as the National Association of Colored Women. This group took its stance on it’s own separate set of issues such as lynching, and defending the respect of black women. (Schaller 686) Ida B. Wells, a founding member of the NAACP took the lead on the lynchings, her crusade lead her to flee the south before she eventually settled down in Chicago. She continued to receive death threats had she returned to Memphis but, she continued her campaign and ended up taking it abroad.  There she would form London’s Anti-Lynching Committee, this would causes waves all the way to Memphis, where

Today, women and minorities have a wide variety of professions they can pursue; but it was not always that way. Before the Civil Rights Movement, women and minorities, especially black people, were bounded to a stereotypical or subservient role in society without the right to voice their opinions. Some, however, did take a stand to fight for equal rights against all odds. These people were called Civil Rights activists and many became leaders. Among the many famous pioneers such as Martin, Malcolm, and Angela, was a woman of great pride and honor – Shirley Chisholm. Chisholm was a civil rights leader who championed the causes of equal rights and fair treatment for both women and minorities through her determination, community involvement, and

She showed them that they could be equal. The only difference was the color of the skin. She taught them that that wasn’t even a big difference. She fought segregation her entire life.

To understand the controversy that Billie presented one must first go to the root or source of such controversy and examine Billie's childhood. Billie was born Eleanora Harris to her father Clarence Holiday and mother Sadie Fagan who were just fifteen and thirteen years old, respectively, at the time (A 91). Born between 1912 and 1915 in Baltimore, the date unsure, Billie grew up without her father, who moved away early on in her life.

Who is Annie Easley? Maybe she was one of the four African Americans to work for NASA out of 2,500 employees. Or maybe she was a human computer, a mathematician, or a math technician? Who was Annie Easley?

Through these organizations, Anne had become actively involved in the civil rights movement. She soon realized, though, that there were a lot of preconditions that were needed to achieve significant social change in the black community. Many of the projects Anne worked on, lacked support from the black community. She did not realize how much she would be harassed by the white people because she was fighting the rights of black people. The main preconditions for social change in the 1950s and 1960s, was getting the black community to support the various projects SNCC and the NAACP were working on. The black people they were fighting for did not always like the projects that Anne, and the other young people in SNCC, had been doing. Many black people tended to ignore the efforts of the SNCC because they were afraid of change. It took a lot of work to convince the black community to support the various projects the young people of SNCC were doing. An example of a project that the black community supported extensively, was Freedom Summer. This project would not have been successful if the black community did not support this. The Freedom Summer project proved to be a success because the black community went out and voted. This proved to the federal government, that black people were interested in gaining voting rights. Anne Moody had thought about joining the National Association for the

Josephine Baker was born Freda Josephine MacDonald in St. Louis, Missouri to her unwed parents: Carrie McDonald and Eddie Carson. Her father soon left the family and Josephine had to help her mother support herself and her three younger half-siblings. At age eight, she got a job working as a maid for a white family (Robinson). At age 12, she had dropped out of school to work. By age 14, she had moved out, been married, and separated from her first husband. She would later go onto marry and divorce three more men. Never was she financially dependent on any man, including her husbands.

Another young woman, Ella Thomas, described her pregnancy in a manner that further complicates interpreting historical pregnancy. While having a miscarriage, Ella describes herself as sick but does not appear to be bothered by the event. Despite experiencing symptoms such as fatigue, Ella does not describe her pregnancy within these terms. If anything, she finds her symptoms a nuisance (Thomas). Furthermore, her own pregnancy has led her to sympathize with other pregnant women. She mentions in the diary that if she had “sole management” of a plantation that “pregnant women would be highly favored…whether black of white” (Thomas). The distinction of “sole management” here is fascinating because it implies that her husband would not be in charge in this case, and that if he were in charge he would be less likely to show favor to pregnant women because he personally could not understand the experience (Thomas).