“Strong people don’t need strong leaders”— Ella Baker

Editing by Carolyn Bennett

People must “understand that in the long run they themselves are the only protection they have against violence and injustice,” said a leading figure of the U.S. civil rights movement.

“[People] cannot look for salvation anywhere but to themselves.”

Ella Baker “and many of her idealistic young comrades [in the 1931 Young Negroes Cooperative League, the first political organization she joined) felt the cooperative movement was much more than a survival strategy to ameliorate the suffering of a handful of Black participants. It was also a proving ground for the principles of communalism and cooperation, an alternative to the cutthroat mode of competition that many felt had led to the 1929 stock market crash and the ensuing social disaster. …

“Ella Baker was, above all, a bridge connecting young people to their elders, northerners to southerners, Black people to White people, intellectuals to common folk in a web of organizational and personal relationships.

“She was a historical bridge connecting the social movements of the 1950s and 1960s to the legacy of Black resistance and social protest in the decades that followed.”

Ella Baker was an untelevised legend. You did not see news stories about her. The kind of role she tried to play, she said, was “to pick up pieces or put together pieces out of which … organization might come.”

She was the most important nonstudent involved in the phase of student activism that began with the formation of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee following the dramatic sit-ins of the winter and spring of 1960. She gave 50 years to political activism.

Ella Josephine Baker (1903-1986) “was a pivotal behind-the-scenes figure in progressive African-American political movements from the 1930s [forward].”

Her theory — “Strong people don’t need strong leaders.”




Sources
Women in the Civil Rights Movement: Trailblazers and Torchbearers 1941-1965 (“Ella Baker and the Origins of ‘Participatory Democracy’” by Carol Mueller), edited by Vicki L. Crawford, Jacqueline Ann Rouse, and Barbara Woods (Indiana University Press, 1993)

Black women in America: An Historical Encyclopedia (Volume I), edited by Darlene Clark Hine, Elsa Barkley Brown, and Rosalyn Terborg-Penn (Indiana University Press, 1993)



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“We who believe in freedom” ─ Reagon’s Ella

Lyrics excerpted with minor edits by Carolyn Bennett for Today's Insight News
In an interview today on WBIA, Bernice Johnson Reagon discussed her activism, her career and work, Ella Baker, U.S. history, context and current affairs.

African American woman’s voice, child of Southwest Georgia, voice raised in song, born in the struggle against racism in America during the Civil Rights Movement of the 50s and 60s, Bernice Johnson Reagon has been a major cultural voice for freedom and justice. She is a composer, singer, song leader, scholar and producer. Four decades ago, Bernice Johnson Reagon organized Sweet Honey In The Rock.

She is the composer of

“Ella’s Song”

Ccopyright: Songtalk Publishing Co.

We who believe in freedom cannot rest

We who believe in freedom cannot rest until it comes

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

Until the killing of Black men, Black mothers’ sons
Is as important as the killing of White men, White mothers’ sons

We who believe in freedom cannot rest

We who believe in freedom cannot rest until it comes

… That which touches me most is that I had a chance to work with people
Passing on to others that which was passed on to me

We who believe in freedom cannot rest

We who believe in freedom cannot rest until it comes

To me young people come first, they have the courage where we fail
… If I can shed some light as they carry us through the gale

We who believe in freedom cannot rest

We who believe in freedom cannot rest until it comes

The older I get the better I know that the secret of my going on
Is when the reins are in the hand of the young who dare to run against the storm

We who believe in freedom cannot rest

We who believe in freedom cannot rest until it comes

Not needing to clutch for power, not needing the light just to shine on me
I need to be just one in the number as we stand against tyranny

We who believe in freedom cannot rest

We who believe in freedom cannot rest until it comes

Struggling myself don’t mean a whole lot I come to realize
…Teaching others to stand up and fight is the only way my struggle survives

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

I’m a woman who speaks in a voice and I must be heard
At time I can be quite difficult, I’ll bow to no man’s word

We who believe in freedom cannot rest

We who believe in freedom cannot rest until it comes

We who believe in freedom cannot rest

We who believe in freedom cannot rest until it comes

Bernice Johnson Reagon is the composer Ella’s Song copyright: Songtalk Publishing Co.
http://www.bernicejohnsonreagon.com/ella.shtml
http://www.bernicejohnsonreagon.com/

Bernice Johnson Reagon was in interview live on WBAI, New York City, May 3, 2010, http://wbai.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=category§ionid=4&id=221&Itemid=135