Carolina QuotesThe development of the individual to his highest potential for the benefit of the group.
Ella Josephine Baker Connected to the Carolinas
Source
The Eyes on the Prize Civil Rights Reader: documents, speeches and firsthand accounts from the Black Freedom Struggle, 1954–1990, ed. Clayborne Carson et al. (Penguin Books, 1991), p. 121.
- year
- 1954
- locator
- p. 121
Cite this record
“The development of the individual to his highest potential f…” Ella Josephine Baker. Carolina Quotes, record CQ-62479E01C7. https://carolinaquotes.com/quote/62479e01c7
More from Ella Josephine Baker
I've never believed that the people really were willing and able to pay the price of integration. From a practical standpoint, anyone who looked at the Harlem area knew that the potential for integration per se was basically impossible unless there were some radically innovative things done. And those innovative things would not be acceptable to those who ran the school system, nor to communities, nor even to the people who call themselves supporters of integration.
I did a good deal of speaking, and I went to Queens, I went to the upper West side, and the people very eagerly said they wanted school integration. But when you raised the question of whether they would permit or would welcome Blacks to live in the same houses with them, which was the only practical way at that stage to achieve integration, they squirmed.
I think you have to have a certain sense of your own value, and a sense of security on your part, to be able to forgo the glamor of what the leadership role offers.