Ella Baker Quotes - Page 2

Quotes about:

• 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

• 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

  Christian, New York, Cities

  Source: www.crmvet.org

  4 Copy quote

• Martin [Luther King] wasn't one to buck forces too much.

  Ella Baker

  Kings, Bucks, Too Much

  Source: www.crmvet.org

  9 Copy quote

• When I went to the Association [ National Association for the Advancement of Colored People] I learned a few things by observation. One of the things that used to strike me was [Walter White] need to impress people, even just people who came into the office.

  Ella Baker

  White, People, Office

  Source: www.crmvet.org

  6 Copy quote

• 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

  School, College, Virginia

  Source: www.crmvet.org

  19 Copy quote

• I don't know, except that the only simple answer, I think, is that SCLC [Southern Christian Leadership Conference] had never really developed an organizing technique. I've always characterized the difference in saying that they went in for mobilization. And, to be honest, in terms of the historical facts, their mobilization usually was predicated upon some effort at organizing by someone else. And, at this stage, it was largely SNCC.

  Ella Baker

  Simple, Thinking, Differences

  Source: www.crmvet.org

  54 Copy quote

• I think you can find some rationales for that if we look at the background out of which he came. Martin [Luther King] had come out of a highly competitive, black, middle-class background.

  Ella Baker

  Kings, Thinking, Class

  Source: www.crmvet.org

  34 Copy quote

• 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

  Thinking, Expansion, Way

  Source: www.crmvet.org

  6 Copy quote

• I've never credited myself with a professional life. But, basically, it has been that.

  Ella Baker

  Has Beens, Professional Life

  Source: www.crmvet.org

  25 Copy quote

• The anniversary of the Montgomery boycott was being celebrated, and the handbill that was out, and all whatever literature that was circulated, didn't say practically anything about movement or what the movement stood for, what it had done, or anything, but was simply adulation of the leader, you know, [Martin Luther] King.

  Ella Baker

  Kings, Leader, Done

  Source: www.crmvet.org

  18 Copy quote

• Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee was more politically oriented. Part and parcel of the initial SNCC efforts was to not only go in for voter registration, but for political participation.

  Ella Baker

  Effort, Political, Voters

  Source: www.crmvet.org

  16 Copy quote

• I believe, the NAACP began to try to organize parents of Negro children to file petitions with the boards of education regarding the integration of the school system. You had some very severe economic reprisals against people in Mississippi and in South Carolina. So, in order to try to help to meet some of the physical needs and the economic needs of people in Clarendon County [SC] who had been displaced from the land, and otherwise, and in certain sections of Mississippi, we organized in New York City something called "In Friendship".

  Ella Baker

  New York, Children, Believe

  Source: www.crmvet.org

  42 Copy quote

• 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

  Memories, Real, War

  Source: www.crmvet.org

  15 Copy quote

• In your short stay in Atlanta, I'm sure you saw that there was great competition between Martin's [Luther King] father and John Wesley Dobbs in terms of family status. You know, the bragging about whose child got a master's degree first and whose child, maybe, was the first Ph.D. Out of a background like that, the business of becoming a chairman of an important movement or a movement that symbolizes a certain amount of prestige is something you don't resist easily.

  Ella Baker

  Kings, Children, Father

  Source: www.crmvet.org

  7 Copy quote

• 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

  Thinking, Association, Way

  Source: www.crmvet.org

  23 Copy quote

• After the '57 initial meeting - I was up this way working, not as a staff person - there became the need for a much more definite organized office. What you'd had prior to that time were these big meetings in different places, and there was nobody to pull anything together. Everything was left to [Martin Luther] King and the group that was around him.

  Ella Baker

  Kings, Office, Together

  Source: www.crmvet.org

  21 Copy quote

• 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

  Book, Mean, Thinking

  Source: www.crmvet.org

  9 Copy quote

• [Martin Luther] King was one of the two young ministers - and you know how directly oriented the Negro community still is towards the minister as the leader.

  Ella Baker

  Kings, Two, Community

  Source: www.crmvet.org

  13 Copy quote

• [Walter White] had keep [people] waiting while you got the impression that he was terribly busy with calls to Washington. I've seen such exhibitions in that direction as having someone come out of his office to the switchboard operator - which at that time was sort of located in the center of wherever people were waiting - and ask to call such-and-such a place, or a call through to Mr. So-and-so, or somebody like this, you see.

  Ella Baker

  White, People, Office

  Source: www.crmvet.org

  7 Copy quote

• Unless you had developed a certain independence of value, a certain independent system of value, a system of values that was independent from this middle-class drive for recognition. This has been my explanation of part of [Martin Luther King] general role. So, he accepted this without too much resistance. In fact, none that I could ever see, and at certain points I was close enough to see something.

  Ella Baker

  Kings, Independent, Class

  Source: www.crmvet.org

  6 Copy quote

• One of the stories that dominates our family literature was the fact that my maternal grandfather contracted for - I don't know under what terms - but, for a large section of the old slave plantation. He established himself - sisters and brothers, cousins, etc. on fifty- and sixty-acre plots.

  Ella Baker

  Cousin, Brother, Grandfather

  Source: www.crmvet.org

  7 Copy quote

• Nixon was the one force in Montgomery for a number of years that made any effort in the direction of challenging the power structure. Ed Nixon's source of direction for that comes out of his relationship with the Brotherhood of Sleeping Care Porters and the Randolph philosophy of mass action. So, Ed Nixon really was the force that conceived of the boycott and drew up the original papers for the boycott.

  Ella Baker

  Philosophy, Sleep, Years

  Source: www.crmvet.org

  6 Copy quote

• 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

  School, Years, North Carolina

  Source: www.crmvet.org

  4 Copy quote

• [Walter White] was also one of the best lobbyist of the period.

  Ella Baker

  White, Walter White, Lobbyists

  Source: www.crmvet.org

  5 Copy quote

• I didn't have any close relationship with him because, although [William Edward Burghardt] DuBois may not have been as egocentric - I don't know - he certainly was not the easiest person to approach. I think, certainly, those of us who were younger sort of respected that in terms of his preoccupation with deep thoughts. So, I made no effort to establish any relationship with him. However, he was in and out then.

  Ella Baker

  Thinking, Effort, Deep Thought

  Source: www.crmvet.org

  7 Copy quote

Page 2 of 3

First

← Prev

1

2

3

Next →

• facebook
• twitter
• googleplus
• email
• linkedin