You would go into areas where people were not yet organized in the NAACP and try to get them more involved. Maybe you would start with some simple thing like the fact that they had no street lights, or the fact that in the given area somebody had been arrested or had been jailed in a manner that was considered illegal and unfair, and the like. You would deal with whatever the local problem was, and on the basis of the needs of the people you would try to organize them in the NAACP.
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
“You would go into areas where people were not yet organized …” Ella Josephine Baker. Carolina Quotes, record CQ-EB88BABD81. https://carolinaquotes.com/quote/eb88babd81
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.
Remember, 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.
My basic sense of it has always been to get people to understand that in the long run they themselves are the only protection they have against violence or injustice.