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.
Ella Josephine Baker Connected to the Carolinas
Source
No citation is recorded for this quotation.
- form
- interview
- work
- 1970 Interview in Black Women in White America: A Documentary History by Gerda Lerner
- year
- 1970
no citation recorded
Cite this record
“I think you have to have a certain sense of your own value, …” Ella Josephine Baker. Carolina Quotes, record CQ-6914E09C26. https://carolinaquotes.com/quote/6914e09c26
More from Ella Josephine Baker
The movement of the '50's and '60's was carried largely by women, since it came out of church groups. It was sort of second nature to women to play a supportive role. How many made a conscious decision on the basis of the larger goals, how many on the basis of habit pattern, I don't know. But it's true that the number of women who carried the movement is much larger than that of men. Black women have had to carry this role, and I think the younger women are insisting on an equal footing.
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.
Until the killing of black men, black mothers' sons, becomes as important to the rest of the country as the killing of a white mother's son, we who believe in freedom cannot rest until this happens. (1964)