ELLA BAKER, 'BLACK WOMEN'S WORK' AND ACTIVIST INTELLECTUALS Author(s): Joy James Source: The Black Scholar, Vol. 24, No. 4, BLACK POPULAR MOVEMENTS (Fall 1994), pp. 8- 15 Published by: Taylor & Francis, Ltd. Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/41069719 Accessed: 24-04-2019 22:29 UTC JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected]. Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at https://about.jstor.org/terms Taylor & Francis, Ltd. is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to The Black Scholar This content downloaded from 137.165.164.2 on Wed, 24 Apr 2019 22:29:15 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms ELLA BAKER, 'BLACK WOMEN'S WORK' AND ACTIVIST INTELLECTUALS In my organizational work I have never thought in terms of my "making a contribution/' I just thought of myself as functioning where there was a need. And If I have made a contribution I think it may be that I had some influence on a large number of people. - Ella Baker ' by Joy James INTELLECTUALS AND Payne observes: POLITICAL CHOICE That Ella Baker could have lived the life she did and remain so little known even among the polit- BRILLIANT STRATEGIST in the civil rights ically knowledgeable is important in itself. It re- minds us once more of how much our collective movements, Ella Josephine Baker (1903- past has been distorted - and distorted in dis- 1986) was field organizer for the National As- empowering ways/ sociation for the Advancement of Colored Part of the distortion stems from which ac- People (NAACP) in the 1930s and 1940s, and the first director of the Southern Christian tors are privileged in political memory and Leadership Conference (SCLC) in the 1950s. knowledge. Reflecting the conservative/lib- She also acted as convener of the student eral bias that privileges men, whites and the conference in 1960 that lead to the forma- affluent, some male (SCLC) civil rights lead- tion of the Student Non-Violent Coordinat- ers and contemporary civil rights historians de-emphasized the role of African American ing Committee (SNCC), for which she women in this movement.4 For most, leader- served as advisor. Baker's "organizational ship and agency have been distorted as pri- work" expanded US democracy as well as marily the attributes of male political and in- helped to redefine and radicalize the roles tellectual elites. It is not surprising that the of intellectuals and activists in the civil rights era. Her radicalism transformed criticisms of contributions of radicals, particularly black women such as Miss Baker, who spoke and racism into critiques of both capitalism and organized not only against racism but also liberal acquiescence to oppressive state prac- capitalism and imperialism, go unrecognized. tices. Baker also channeled her critiques into Even the 'knowledgeable' may remember political opposition through civil disobedi- Miss Baker's political contributions in disem- ence and grassroots organizing for a demo- powering ways, i.e., in ways that de-radicalize cratic society. Merging rhetoric about black her political commitments. For some Miss liberation with activism, she embodied both Baker may represent the "organic intellectu- political worker and intellectual. al," described in Antonio Gramsci's Prison Ella Baker's influence on a large number Notebooks as the strategist whose theorizing to of people extends to generations who, know- end oppression forms the "ribs corseting the ing very little about or having never heard of masses." The organic intellectual as activist Miss Baker,- were shaped by her political works with a theoretical and experiential po- legacy. Miss Baker's obscurity is as instructive litical base, which is precisely how Ella Baker as her political thought and action. Charles positioned herself. However, Miss Baker PAGE 8 THE BLACK SCHOLAR VOLUME 24, NO. 4 This content downloaded from 137.165.164.2 on Wed, 24 Apr 2019 22:29:15 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms would likely reject as elitist any Gramscian from Jim Crow, EHa Baker left her home and characterization of her as a member of a po- a somewhat protected, privileged place in litical vanguard. One of her often cited Littleton, South Carolina for New York City. quotes is that "a strong people don't need In New York, she secured employment in the strong leaders." As an activist-intellectual menial and racially-sexually exploited labor, with democratic vision, Ella Baker's thought considered traditional "black women's reveals a strong sense of social change deter- work."6 mined by "ordinary" people who wage politi- Racist and sexist hiring policies - the few cal movements. Her relationships to impov- African American businesses tended to hire erished and militant workers forged political men for clerical workers with the bias that perspectives that identified African Ameri- men were, and should be, the primary can laborers and workers as political leaders. "bread winners" - meant that for several Such views on mass leadership shaped her fa- years Ella Baker's first and only paying job cilitation of grassroots activism for the was as a restaurant waitress. Rather than sub- NAACP, SCLC and SNCC; it also led to her mit to exploitation, Baker began organizing resignations from the NAACP and SCLC with other African American workers for whose bureaucratic leadership, in her esti- jobs and collective economic gains. Later ob- mation, refused to commit to grassroots po- taining factory work,7 and eventual employ- litical activism. (A study of her political life ment as a journalist and paid political orga- reveals the class, gender and ideological dif- nizer, Ella Baker gained a wide range of work ferences within the civil rights movement.) and social experiences. These traditional Ella Baker's preference to take her politi- and "non-traditional" jobs, along with orga- cal directives from poor or working class nizing with Harlem trade unionists during African Americans, rather than civil rights the Depression, deepened her understand- elites, led some to marginalize her. However ing of the economic exploitation in racism. her political instincts were grounded in po- At the height of the Depression, national litical lessons accumulated through activism production decreased by half, thousands in New York City during the Depression. were left homeless due to bank foreclosures Labor activism in Harlem planted the roots and millions were left jobless without com- of her praxis in the political-economic con- pensation. By 1933 an estimated 66% of the ditions and collective leadership of black "potential labor force of Harlem was unem- workers, youth and women. As a young, ployed."8 In 1935 over two million African black woman worker during this era, Baker Americans were on relief. Concentrated in used her own caste position to explore the northern cities - eleven had African Ameri- relevancy and efficacy of black liberation can populations of over 100,000 by the end politics. of 19359 - African Americans used their votes to increase the numbers of black city BLACK WORKERS AND LABOR ACTIVISTS officials; yet the majority were impoverished. Ella Baker's life time, "black In response to their conditions, largely un- women's work" generally meant fieldmitigated or by electoral politics, African Amer- domestic labor for whites (in the North icans it ex- formed Unemployed Councils which panded to include factory work). For supported a more multi-racial organizing and orga- privileged minority of African American nized nationwide "hunger marches" to agi- women it also included teaching, tate which for immediate emergency relief and un- brought both status and a reprieve fromemployment the compensation legislation.10 dehumanizing physical labor characterizing Ella Baker describes New York City in the black women's work.5 A college graduate 1930s, with its "race" men and women, social- from Shaw University, Ella Baker recognized ists, communists, and union activists, as a the limitations imposed on anti-racist stimulating educa- "hotbed of radical thinking."11 tors by white controlled school boards During and the Depression, Baker herself began rejected a teaching career. In 1927, to joiningconsider the structural nature of black ex- hundreds of thousands of black women mi- ploitation and the need for organized re- grating North in search of work and relief sponses to it: THE BLACK SCHOLAR VOLUME 24, NO. 4 PAGE 9 This content downloaded from 137.165.164.2 on Wed, 24 Apr 2019 22:29:15 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms I began to see that there were certain social Manhattan's African American population forces over which the individual had very little had been born in the South.17 control. It wasn't an easy lesson for me to learn but I was able to learn it. It was out of that con- According to Ella Baker, young African text that I began to explore more in the area of Americans joined the Young Negroes Coop- ideology and the theory of social change. So dur- erative League during the Depression be- ing the Depression years, I began to identify to cause they "were feeling the pinch, so when some extent with the unemployed, the organiza- tion of the unemployed. ." people feel the pinch they do certain things that they wouldn't do otherwise." The Faced with increasing economic hardship, league offered an alternative to Darwinian racist riots, hatred strikes, exclusion from production and consumption and necessity better paying jobs and unions by northern made it popular among young African Amer- white workers,13 and the racism of the federal icans.