“OUR RICH BLACK HERITAGE” ~ Ella Jo Baker

When we examine the problems of today, it’s good to go back and take a look at the problems of the past ,which just happen to also be problems of today! During the early 1900s,”Mrs Ella Baker,”a Negro civil rights activist, human rights activist , and community organizer, helped unite & organize black people for black economic development. For more than 5 decades, Ella Baker worked tirelessly to get Negroes to support themselves economically, so that they wouldn’t have to depend on outside assistance.Also, she often worked with other well-known black figures worked alongside some of the most noted civil rights leaders of the 20th century, including W. E. B. Du Bois, Thurgood Marshall, A. Philip Randolph, and Martin Luther King Jr. She also mentored many emerging activists, such as Diane Nash, Stokely Carmichael, and Bob Moses, as leaders in the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) to help establish black economic networks, and develop cooperative economic societies throughout the United States for black economic development and causes.In short, Ella Baker took a proactive approach in solving the economic problems of the Negro In America.Furthermore, I would like to say that I believe as Mrs Baker believed. She believed that the bedrock of any social change organization is not its leaders' eloquence or credentials, but the commitment and hard work of the rank and file membership and their willingness and ability to engage in discussion, debate, and decision-making. Additionally, She especially stressed the importance of young people and women in the organization as well as the strong leadership of black men.Today, we are still fighting some of the same economic problems that existed back in the early 1900s. We all know what some of them are, but few of us are uniting and organizing the black people collectively to solve these economic problems!