Quotes by Ella Baker

Ella Baker

[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.

Community

Kings

Two

[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.

Office

People

White

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.

Kings

Office

Together

During the Depression years, I began to identify to some extent with the unemployed, the organization for the unemployed at that period.

Organization

Periods

Years

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.

Differences

Simple

Thinking

I had known, number one, that there would never be any role for me in the leadership capacity with SCLC. Why? First, I’m a woman. Also, I’m not a minister. And second, I am a person that feels that I have to maintain some degree of personal integrity and be my own barometer of what is important and what is not.

Important

Integrity

Numbers

I have always felt it was a handicap for oppressed peoples to depend so largely upon a leader, because unfortunately in our culture, the charismatic leader usually becomes a leader because he has found a spot in the public limelight.

Culture

Leader

Slavery

I have always thought that what is needed is the development of people who are interested not in being leaders as much as in developing leadership in others.

Development

Leadership

People

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.

Association

Thinking

Way

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.

Class

Kings

Thinking

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Association

Believe

Class

College

Community

Congress

Connections

Country

Culture

Development

Differences

Different

History

Impact

Important

Integrity

Kind

Kings

Leader

Leadership

Luther

Meaningful

Memories

Mother

Nashville

North Carolina

Numbers

Office

Order

Organization

People

Periods

Personality

Philosophy

Point Of View

Real

School

Self

Simple

Slavery

Sleep

Strong

Thinking

Together

Two

Views

Virginia

Waiting

War

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Quotes by Ella Baker

Ella Baker

[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.

During the Depression years, I began to identify to some extent with the unemployed, the organization for the unemployed at that period.

I have always felt it was a handicap for oppressed peoples to depend so largely upon a leader, because unfortunately in our culture, the charismatic leader usually becomes a leader because he has found a spot in the public limelight.

I have always thought that what is needed is the development of people who are interested not in being leaders as much as in developing leadership in others.

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.

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.

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The Future Blueprint

The Home Therapist: Anti Anxiety

The Autobiography

The Behaviour Diary

The Dating Diary

The Relationship Therapist

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