Freedom Cannot Rest Ella Baker And The Civil Rights Movement

Over the course of her life, Ella Baker helped found scores of organizations, campaigns, and coalitions dedicated to the fight for civil rights. Born in 1903, less than forty years after the end of the Civil War, she grew up in a close-knit family that instilled in her strong values and beliefs about equality. Baker moved to New York City during the height of the Harlem Renaissance and quickly became involved with organizations seeking civil rights for all Americans. Though she distrusted their top-down leadership styles, she worked closely with the NAACP and Martin Luther King Jr.'s Southern Christian Leadership Conference, which she helped found. From Selma to Birmingham to Washington, D.C., Baker worked tirelessly behind the scenes to raise money and awareness. A frank speaker, Baker clashed with other leaders, including King. She found a home advising the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, which nurtured the sit-in movement of the early 1960s. As the times changed and the movement became increasingly radical, Baker maintained a commitment to nonviolent direct action and continued to speak up for universal justice and equality. Her life's story parallels that of the civil rights movement, illustrating the adage that one person can make a difference. Freedom Cannot Rest: Ella Baker and the Civil Rights Movement brings alive some of the most turbulentand dramatic years in our nation's history.Bohannon, Lisa Frederiksen is the author of 'Freedom Cannot Rest Ella Baker And The Civil Rights Movement', published 2005 under ISBN 9781931798716 and ISBN 1931798710.