Carolina QuotesI knew that the young people were the hope of any movement.
Ella Josephine Baker
Connected to the Carolinas
Source
Oral history interview by Eugene Walker, September 4, 1974; Southern Oral History Program, Interview G-0007, Southern Historical Collection, UNC-Chapel Hill
- form
- interview
- work
- Oral History Interview with Ella Baker, Interview G-0007
- year
- 1974
Cite this record
“I knew that the young people were the hope of any movement.” Ella Josephine Baker. Carolina Quotes, record CQ-9AAA4082B0. https://carolinaquotes.com/quote/9aaa4082b0
More from Ella Josephine Baker
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.
Black people who were living in the South were constantly living with violence. Part of the job was to help them to understand what that violence was and how they in an organized fashion could help to stem it. The major job was getting people to understand that they had something within their power that they could use, and it could only be used if they understood what was happening and how group action could counter violence even when it was perpetrated by the police or, in some instances, the state.
And even before, I would help with forums at churches and things, because I think people grow from talking to each other.