Ella Baker Quotes

Quotes about:

• We who believe in freedom cannot rest until it comes.

  Ella Baker

  Believe

  308 Copy quote

• 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

  Order, Remember, Has Beens

  455 Copy quote

• 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

  Leadership, People, Development

  439 Copy quote

• 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

  Moving, People, World

  440 Copy quote

• 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

  Mother, Country, Believe

  434 Copy quote

• 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

  Fighting, Civil Rights, Spirit

  364 Copy quote

• 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

  Strong, News Stories, Play

  448 Copy quote

• Give light, and people will find the way...

  Ella Baker

  Happiness, Success, Uplifting

  "Song: Give Light". 1999.

  303 Copy quote

• 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

  Meaningful, Self, Order

  317 Copy quote

• I didn't break the rules, but I challenged the rules.

  Ella Baker

  Break

  204 Copy quote

• 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

  Jobs, Power, People

  213 Copy quote

• My theory is, strong people don't need strong leaders.

  Ella Baker

  Strong, War, People

  157 Copy quote

• 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

  Believe, Giving, Culture

  187 Copy quote

• 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

  History, Waiting, African American

  140 Copy quote

• 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

  Leader, Slavery, Culture

  152 Copy quote

• 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

  Integrity, Numbers, Important

  Source: www.crmvet.org

  82 Copy quote

• 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

  Kings, Kind, Luther

  Source: www.crmvet.org

  87 Copy quote

• Strong people do not need strong leaders.

  Ella Baker

  Strong, People, Leader

  28 Copy quote

• I came out of a family background that involved itself with people.

  Ella Baker

  People, Backgrounds, Involved

  Source: www.crmvet.org

  49 Copy quote

• 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

  Views, Different, Point Of View

  Source: www.crmvet.org

  8 Copy quote

• 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

  Thinking, People, Movement

  Source: www.crmvet.org

  12 Copy quote

• 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

  Party, People, Friendly

  Source: www.crmvet.org

  4 Copy quote

• During the Depression years, I began to identify to some extent with the unemployed, the organization for the unemployed at that period.

  Ella Baker

  Years, Organization, Periods

  Source: www.crmvet.org

  15 Copy quote

• 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

  New York, College, Would Be

  Source: www.crmvet.org

  6 Copy quote

• 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

  Ambition, Opportunity, Giving

  Source: www.crmvet.org

  9 Copy quote

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