Carolina QuotesRemember, we are not fighting for the freedom of the Negro alone, but for the freedom of the human spirit, a larger freedom that encompasses all mankind.
Ella Josephine Baker Connected to the Carolinas
Source
"The Women Behind the Men" by Gail Collins in the The New York Times, September 22, 2007
- year
- 2007
Cite this record
“Remember, we are not fighting for the freedom of the Negro a…” Ella Josephine Baker. Carolina Quotes, record CQ-E9F9E490CA. https://carolinaquotes.com/quote/e9f9e490ca
More from Ella Josephine Baker
As assistant field secretary of the branches of the NAACP, much of my work was in the South. At that time the NAACP was the leader on the cutting edge of social change. I remember when NAACP membership in the South was the basis for getting beaten up or even killed.
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.
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.