You may recognize her name as Shaw University’s valedictorian of 1927. She was also a gifted speaker + strong writer (in fact, the youngest contributor to the campus newspaper). But most importantly, Ella Baker was one of the most influential Black civil rights leaders and human rights activists of the twentieth century.

Ella Baker was born in Norfolk, VA in 1903, but moved to rural NC in 1910 with her mother, siblings, and grandmother. As the granddaughter of former slaves, she developed a sense for injustice and a spark inside her at an early age. Her grandmother would share horror stories about her own life under slavery — stories that influenced Ella greatly.

After graduating from Shaw, Ella moved to New York City, where she joined the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP). As a member of the NAACP, she helped organize leadership conferences, establish long-lasting relationships, and raise money to fight against Jim Crow Laws in the deep South. While she mostly worked as a field secretary during her time in the organization, she did serve as president of the New York chapter in 1952.

However, one of Ella Baker’s most significant contributions to the civil rights movement is the birth of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee — a committee of young student activists that believed in nonviolent direct action. SNCC was behind the 1963 March on Washington + the Mississippi Freedom Summer.

Ella Baker passed away in 1986 at the age of 83. Her legacy lives on through the Ella Baker Center for Human Rights and Shaw University’s Ella Baker Leadership Circle.