Laying the Groundwork for Freedom: Septima Clark and Ella Baker

Jeff Kolnick

TAH/JPS

Hamer Institute

June 2012

Assessment QuestionsHow did Clark and Baker contribute to the

idea of participatory democracy? In what ways were Clark’s and Baker’s

leadership feminist and how might this help explain their absence from popular discussions of civil rights leadership?

Septima Clark and Ella Baker

May 3, 1898–December 15, 1987

December 13, 1903 – December 13, 1986

Working to educate and organize and not for the spotlight

“You didn’t see me on television, you didn’t see news stories about me. The kind of role that I tried to play was to pick up pieces or put together pieces out of which I hoped organization might come. My theory is, strong people don’t need strong leaders.”

Ella Baker

You always have to get the people with you. You can’t force them into things….When I went into Mississippi and Alabama I stayed behind the scene and tried to get the people in town to push forward, and then I would come forth with ideas. But I wouldn’t do it at first because I knew it was detrimental….The people in the masses, though, do better than teachers. They come out. They’re willing to fight anyhow.

Septima Clark

Building a Grassroots Network of Leaders

Mrs. Clark and Mrs. Baker represent a tradition of grassroots leadership that in many respects explains the success and significance of the Civil Rights movement.

By 1965, movement activity had spread into all regions of the south. In hundreds of local communities, rural and urban, deep south and upper south, local leaders had emerged who were not afraid and where empowered with new confidence and tools.

In their own ways, these women were catalysts in developing a strong network of leaders among the masses of black folk throughout the south and they did this over the course of many years.

Their leadership was characteristic of women’s leadership: what Joanne Grant called a “group-centered leadership rather than a leadership-centered group.’ Or what Barbara Ransby called “a radical democratic vision” that without being explicitly feminist, was unable to accommodate any form of discrimination that limited participation in the movement for any reason other than a lack of commitment.

Characteristics of Women’s Leadership

Non-Hierarchical and egalitarian

Network CenteredInstitution Builders and transformers

Religiously and culturally based

A focus on adult education, empowerment, and leadership development

Working at the intersections of race, class, and gender

Political SocializationDirect links to slavery , Clark’s father and Baker’s

grandparents:Clark learned to work with everyone and Baker to challenge

authorityMothers: Clark to never back down and Baker to always

care for the communityFathers: Clark to maintain a sense of who you are and

Baker a pride in heritage and to have some fun in lifeBoth came from families that deeply valued education

and were connected to their communities on many levelsBoth lived within a community that was close and

connectedBoth had “unconventional marriages” and a lot of

freedom to do their own work

Education to Serve

Septima Clark Ella BakerHigh School Graduate ,

Charleston, SC, 19161942 BA, Columbia

University1945, MA Hampton InstituteWorked with DuBois at

Atlanta University1954, Highlander

workshopsElected to Charleston

School Board in 1976 and served two terms

Grammar school graduate and an extra year to prepare for college

1918-1927 Shaw Academy and Shaw University, Valedictorian of both high school and college

“Postgraduate training:”Clark and Equalization

Pay inequity Work Load Access to Charleston schools as

teachers and principals Joined NAACP in 1919 in

Charleston and achieved goals in 1920 after door to door campaign and gaining 10,000 signatures for a petition

Started adult education/literacy in 1935 for WWI Veterans

Dismissed in 1955 for refusing to renounce her membership in the NAACP

Worked with State NAACP and Thurgood Marshall starting in 1935 for pay equity. In 1976 she is awarded back pay and pension benefits.

“Postgraduate training:” Ella Baker, the 30s, and NYC

137th Street YWCA and important friendships: Dorothy Height and Pauli Murray

NAACPHarlem Branch Library Socialists, Communists,

Organized Labor, UNIAThe Young Negroes’

Cooperative LeagueWorker’s Education Project

(WPA): 1,000 teachers helping workers gain “a more intelligent understanding of the social and political economy of which he is a part.”

Building the Network: Mrs. Clark and the Power of Literacy

Mrs. Clark and the NAACP On to Highlander, 1956 First Citizenship School on John’s Island, 1957 “All over the Deep South”: Citizenship School Program transferred

to SCLC in 1961 and called the Voter Education Project 1962 There were 897 Citizenship schools from 1957-1970 There were 195 going on in 1964 alone Some 10,000 teachers were trained Mrs. Clark traveled 11 Southern states conducting and

supervising schools Impact

Empowering thousands of local leaders with new toolsOvercoming fearNetworking with leaders throughout the south and ending isolationEmpowering hundreds of thousands with literacy and the vote

Frederick Douglass on Literacy I was now about twelve years old, and the thought of

being a slave for life began to bear heavily upon my heart. Just about this time, I got hold of a book entitled "The Columbian Orator." Every opportunity I got, I used to read this book. In the same book, I met with one of Sheridan's mighty speeches on and in behalf of Catholic emancipation. These were choice documents to me. I read them over and over again with unabated interest. They gave tongue to interesting thoughts of my own soul, which had frequently flashed through my mind, and died away for want of utterance. The reading of these documents enabled me to utter my thoughts, and to meet the arguments brought forward to sustain slavery; but while they relieved me of one difficulty, they brought on another even more painful than the one of which I was relieved. The more I read, the more I was led to abhor and detest my enslavers. I could regard them in no other light than a band of successful robbers, who had left their homes, and gone to Africa, and stolen us from our homes, and in a strange land reduced us to slavery. I loathed them as being the meanest as well as the most wicked of men.

Building the Network: Mrs. Baker and the Power of Organizing

Field Secretary for the NAACP, 1940-43Director of Branches, 1943-46President of the NYC NAACPFounder of In Frienship, 1956First Executive Director of SCLC, 1957Staff member for SCEF Staff, 1963Adult Advisor of SNCC, 1960MFDP Washington office, 1964 Impact

Extensive networkLeadership developmentOvercoming fearCoalition and institution building

Oral History Demonstration with Dr. Leslie Burl McLemore

DiscussionWhat are the unique causes that can

explain the relative obscurity of A Philip Randolph, Pauli Murray, Septima Clark, and Ella Baker?

What are the common causes that can explain the relative obscurity of A Philip Randolph, Pauli Murray, Septima Clark, and Ella Baker?

Resourceshttp://blackhistory.50webs.com/septimaclar

k.htmlKatherine Mellen Charron's Freedom’s

Teacher: The Life of Septima ClarkSeptima Clark and Cynthia Stokes Brown,

Ready from WithinVicki Crawfrod et all, Women in the Civil

Rights MovementJoanne Grant, Ella Baker: Freedom BoundBarbara Ransby, Ella Baker and the Black

Freedom Movement