THE ELLA EFFECT

The practical goal of this study is to explore ways in which

Progressive Black Masculinities can be operationalized across multiple

settings through localized community activism. West (2008) firmly

believes that community activism requires a commitment to people: “You

can’t lead the people if you don’t love the people. You can’t save the

people if you don’t serve the people” (p. 151). Moreover, West contends

that community activists should demonstrate “courage” and “sacrifice” in

the face of catastrophic circumstances. According to West, “love and

service” are the key characteristics that activists should embrace. “That’s

why those who choose to love and serve have a calling and not a career.

Love and service are a vocation, not a profession,” he writes (p. 152). If

West is correct, what models are available for community activists who

adopt a commitment to love and service as the philosophical foundation

of their work?

In this chapter I will tell the story of Ella Baker, a historical

exemplar of community activism who inspires courage, love,

empowerment, and hope to a new generation of activists. The Ella Effect

is the name I have given to the cumulative principles, practices, and

character that define Ella Baker’s life of “love and service” to the people,

as well as the transformative effect her work had in galvanizing and

implementing civil rights at the grassroots level. As I have been affected

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by Ella Baker’s legacy, I work to create an “Ella Effect” in my own

grassroots community activism with young black men of my generation. I

place her at the center of this dissertation as a way to give honor to a

wise elder, to assert the central role of women in the civil rights

movement, and to identify a set of principles and practices for engaging

community activism. I do this by telling parallel biographies that track

the influences, mentors and experiences in Ella life and my own as both

were shaped within close knit supportive, social engaged,

multigenerational black families and communities. Ultimately, the

commitment and actions that are revealed in Ella Baker’s lifework, and

which I strive to echo in my own, form the model of community activism

that will be extended throughout this study.

Baker’s Beginnings: An Historical Overview

While there are various models for contemporary activists to

emulate, I chose Ella Jo Baker who served as a community organizer,

facilitator, educator and most importantly a mentor within the civil rights

movement. Her career spanned over 50 years leaving a noteworthy legacy

for contemporary activists. People who toiled with the passionate unsung

champion for civil rights affectionately cite her influence in formulating

the following: Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC),

strengthening local branches of the National Association for the

Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), co-establishing the Southern

Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) and Mississippi Freedom

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Democratic Party (MFDP). Baker is someone I deeply admire on multiple

levels. Her work as an activist and community organizer “inspires” my

work. Historian Barbra Ransby suggests that Ms Baker was arguably

the most influential woman in the civil rights movement. In her

biography, Ella Baker and the Black Freedom Movement (2003), Ransby

chronicles the life and times of Baker. Due to Baker’s reluctance to seek

self-gratification, Ransby found the project challenging:

One of my chief frustrations as a biographer has been the difficulty

of attempting to follow the trail of a woman who, in many respects,

tried not to leave one. There is no memoir or diary, nor are there

boxes of intimate personal correspondence . . . A part of

interpreting and revisiting Ella Baker’s life has involved a series of

oral history interviews with friends, family members, and co-

workers who knew her over the years. These conversations gave me

not only the facts about Baker’s life but the feel of it as well. (p. 7)

One of most important factors in understanding Baker is through

her personal relationships with individuals who knew her well. Ransby’s

biography is filled with countless references to Ella’s character, class,

integrity, and leadership from those who shared time and toil with her

throughout her activist career. For the purposes of this study, I argue

that the life and work of Ella Baker provides an exemplary historical

model for contemporary activists. Ransby reminds us: “She has left us a

warm and complex work of art, a reminder of a process, a way of working

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and living, a way of looking at that which may not seem of little value

and finding its enormous transformative power” (p. 374).

In Dallard’s A Leader Behind the Scene (1990), Baker is

characterized as an individual who labored in the background avoiding

public attention and accolades for her impressive activism. As a result of

her selflessness and insistence upon making the cause for civil rights not

be about leaders, but about the will of the masses, many people know

very little about Ella’s life and contributions. By Dallard’s accounts,

Baker would not mind the lack of national attention her work receives:

“In spite of her achievements, she never considered herself to be

important. She had no desire to be written up in the newspapers or to

appear on T.V. She preferred to work behind the scenes, letting others

take full credit for whatever was accomplished” (p. 6).

Baker’s work demonstrates how to empower everyday citizens to

participate in collective action for social change. From her organizing

skills as a NAACP field worker to her nurturing way of mentoring along

with her rejection of traditional leadership styles, I draw many principles

and concepts from Baker to inform the activist work I’m involved in.

Women played a major part in the civil rights movement and were mainly

responsible for the laborious job of organizing. One cannot forget Fannie

Lou Hamer’s work registering black voters in Mississippi, Dorothy

Height’s involvement with the National Counsel for Negro Women,

Septima Clark’s fight for equal access to education for blacks, or Mary

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Bethune’s visionary act of establishing a school for black students in

Daytona, Florida. In the context of the enormous accomplishments of

such courageous women, one extraordinary lady stands out. That

woman is Ella Jo Baker, possibly the most influential woman of the civil

rights era.

Along Came a Community Activist

Born on December 13, 1903 in Norfolk, Virginia, Baker dedicated

her life to working against systems of oppression through grassroots

community organizing. Recognized as one of the wisest, meekest, and

most beloved activists for human rights, Baker has left the world an

exemplary body of work to admire and emulate. One of those gifts came

in the form of an affectionate love and understanding of “community,” a

quality Ella adopted from an early age. Baker’s community activist roots

began in her youth as if she was predestined to work on behalf of

marginalized people.

Most activists’ work centers on working within the trenches of a

given community. Known as community builders, activists such as Baker

are a committed to improving specific conditions within the community.

According to hooks (2003) in Teaching Community, community organizers

are educators in the grand sense, encouraging participants to embrace

progressive ideas through shared knowledge and collaborative learning.

hooks further explains, “Teaching community encourages us all to

embrace the values that motivate progressive social change” (p. 202).

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Ella’s impassioned dedication to empower communities through localized

acts of service comes from a long tradition of black community activist

organizers. Akbar (1991) contends that racism and segregation produced

conditions within the black community that caused members to struggle,

love, learn, and share together. This communion resulted in a shared

spirit of service and awareness of the importance of community. As

hooks (2003) suggests: “communion bonds” were forged as a result of

resisting racism and discrimination.

Clifton Taulbert (1997) writes about growing up as a black boy in

the segregated South and examines the ways in which community played

a vital role in shaping its members. For Taulbert, community starts with

family whose love and support is extended out to the community. Ella

Baker grew up under such conditions, coming from a strong, adoring,

and nurturing family who valued community. Baker had modest

beginnings in Norfolk, Virginia and eventually moved to Littleton, North

Carolina with her family around 1911. She grew up in an environment

comprised of religion, encouragement, love, and service. Growing up in

the racially volatile Jim and Jane Crow era, Baker’s family and

community provided a nurturing shield. To capture Baker’s upbringing,

Joanne Grant (1998) points to an interview with Baker conducted by

Rosemarie Harding in 1976.

The Bakers lived in a ‘complete black community…even the store,

the store on the corner, Mr. Forman’s store, was black…So this

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kind of insulation that was provided by black people themselves by

trying to set up their communities or stay in an area where they

gave evidence of being in charge, you see. (p. 16)

Ransby (2003) notes, “During her childhood in Littleton, Ella Baker was

nurtured, educated, and challenged by a community of strong, hard-

working, deeply religious black people–most of them women…who also

pledged themselves to serve and uplift those less fortunate” (p. 14).

Although Baker lived in a segregated black community, she was

keenly aware of the history of racial oppression through narratives of her

grandparents who operated under slavery for a large part of their lives.

Ella’s parents and community did a wonderful job shielding her along

with other children in the neighborhood from the vicious racism rampant

at the time. “Her parents had fashioned a life for their children that

allowed them to avoid routine contact with whites,” writes Ransby (p.

39). Unfortunately, Ransby discovered that Baker was referred to as

“nigger” by white children when traveling into town with her father. For

some of us there is not a key moment where the tentacles of racism

reach up and grab one’s rosy view of the world. Usually this occurs at an

early age for some, while others, like Baker, cannot recall a singular

moment where racism entered their psyche. According to West (2008), for

most black folk, racism must be understood on a continuum of struggles

for social justice:

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We have to recognize that there is radical continuity between the

killing fields of the plantations, the bodies hanging from the trees,

police brutality, the prison-industrial complex, and the Superdome

in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina. (p. 45)

West’s assertion is found in the realization each black parent must face

when confronted with explaining the outside forces of racism, outside of

their child’s loving and protective community.

Looking back, I now realize how diligently my parents worked to

ensure that I was surrounded by love, yet I remember a major encounter

with racism as a child. I am a product of what is often referred to as the

post-civil rights generation. I had the privilege of growing up just outside

of Birmingham, Alabama during the 1980s. Although I did not have to

live under the legal segregation experienced by my parents in their early

childhoods, I was often reminded of such conditions through family

narratives of discrimination. The residue of racial discrimination was

very present in the 1980s, and there were always reminders of the civil

rights struggle as Graysville, the city in which I lived, did not permit

blacks to swim in the city pool. I can remember feeling a sense of

frustration over the situation and wanting to address the problem. I

would argue that my interest in social change was sparked at age eight

in the following struggle to gain access to the community pool.

My brother, two friends and I had ridden our bikes to the local

community center, paid for by the residents of Graysville. We noticed the

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beautiful swimming pool; I remember the sounds of laughter of children

dipping in the pool. We immediately went to the person at the welcoming

desk, a white gentleman, and asked about swimming. The man said:

“Boys, you all need a one hundred dollar membership fee.” We asked for

an application and, while riding home, we noticed that four people could

be on the family membership plan. We decided to ask our parents for the

money, twenty-five dollars each, to pay for the membership.

After much convincing, we all gathered up the money to swim. We

returned the next day to pay and enjoy the cool water on a humid and

hot summer day. I will never forget the look on the man’s face as he said,

“Well boys it’s just not that simple. You better go home and get your

folks.” I couldn’t wait until my father arrived home from work. My father,

the medium built muscular man whom my brother and I looked up to,

would take care of this matter. When my brother and I explained what

had taken place, I could tell something was wrong as my father’s face

had a look of concern. He paused for a moment and said, “I don’t think

that the pool up there allows blacks in it.” My brother and I asked why

and my father responded, “That’s just the way it is sons . . . There are

people out there that feel like they are better because they are white.”

Dad went on to talk about how he and his buddies would swim in

ditches, ponds, and creeks when they were boys in the Jim Crow days.

He said that they would throw rocks in the water to make sure there

were no snakes or other animals around. I believe that was his way of

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explaining to us the effects of racism. My mother, the protector, said,

“Boys, why would you want to swim in that pool anyway . . . where white

folks don’t want you to be there. You all don’t need to swim there.” My

father and other community members went to the city council meetings

to complain, but the city found legal excuse after excuse to not permit

blacks to swim. As I grew up I often heard community people saying,

“The city is promising to build us (black folks) a pool soon.” I even heard

ridiculous discussion about the possibility of having “black days” and

“white days” at the pool, where the water would be drained out after each

race of people swam. All of this seemed uneasy for me to digest and I

promised myself that I would work to try to change not only racism in

Graysville, but everywhere.

Ella Baker’s social consciousness was similarly developed through

interactions with community members, and her approach to activism

must be understood in the context of how she was mentored. The most

influential people in Baker’s life consisted of her maternal grandfather

Mitchell Ross and mother, Georgianna (Anna) Baker. Mr. Mitchell, known

as Grandpa Ross, had a special fondness for Ella as a child due to her

ability to engage in conversation with people (Grant, 1998). As a

minister, Grandpa Ross founded the Roanoke Baptist Church where he

served as minister. According to Grant (1998), Ella took pleasure in

attending church services with her grandfather: “Grandpa enjoyed the

talks, and thought his granddaughter should be shown off, so he put her

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in the pulpit . . . She and grandpa had the whole world to themselves . . .

he would tell her about slavery days, about what it had been like to be a

slave” (pp. 7-8). The conversations with Grandpa Ross helped mold Ella’s

perception of the world in ways that would ultimately provide direction

and her sense of purpose. Ransby further illustrates, “What was instilled

in young Ella Baker by the family’s storytelling tradition was not only

that she was the descendent of slaves, but that she came from a long line

of militant fighters” (pp. 22-23).

One factor which might contribute to Ella’s rhetorical style is

largely attributed to Grandpa Ross who preached in a very practical

manner avoiding the fiery cadence found in popular Black ministers at

the time. “Ella Baker viewed her grandfather’s preaching style as a more

genuine mode of conveying moral teachings than drama and theatrics”

(2003, p. 35). This may explain why Ella believed in teaching and

encouraging people, more so, than stirring them.

“Family is a major vehicle through which history and memory can

be preserved in the face of a culture that defaces history and erases

memory,” West believes (2008, p. 89). West further suggests that a large

amount of young people are disconnected from “the history of sacrifice”

usually passed down by grandparents and elders (p. 143). As noted in

Baker’s development, her grandparents assisted in fostering a grand

vision of democracy and equality.

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I had the fortune of enjoying a similar relationship with my

grandparents and other elders of the community. As a young child, the

narratives of my grandparents and community elders taught me the

importance of courage. Taulbert (1997) refers to this type of collective

knowledge as “front porch wisdom” when he writes: “They ignored the

boundaries when it came to nurturing their children. Instead, gathering

us together on their porches, which were their principal meeting places”

(p. 3). I can remember my paternal grandfather, Nathan Williams Sr.’s

and Mr. John Burt’s narratives of the oppression they faced in the coal

mine having to work in harsh conditions. Mr. Burt spoke of how he had

to show up hours early for work at the coal mine because white co-

workers would hide his tools and if he did not locate them within the

start time of work he could be fired. I remember Mr. Burt standing up on

his porch poking his finger through the bullet holes by the shutters on

his house as an indicator of the gunshots fired by racists who wanted to

teach him a lesson for daringly registering his daughter in a local school

after the Brown vs. Board decision.

These stories shaped my thinking as a young boy who could not

fully understand the implications of racism until later when I grew into a

young man. As West notes: “The number of deep conversations that a

young person actually has with somebody who is 65 years old are few

and far between. They’re never exposed to our most valuable examples”

(2008, p. 101). It was the wisdom, guidance, and courageous deeds of

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Grandpa Nathan and Mr. Burt which influenced my social justice

sensibility. West describes people like Mr. Burt and Baker’s Grandpa

Ross as grand examples of elderly wisdom and gatekeepers of historical

legacy; their narratives serve as life compasses to younger generations.

“If you don’t have those kinds of people in your life, you’re not going to be

moved enough to really want to know what deep education is” (p. 101).

Taulbert and West suggest that the wisdom of lived experience is a virtue

separate from knowledge which involves careful patient learning and

critical thinking.

Shaped by Grandma’s Hands

Many activists have been fortunate enough to encounter significant

people in their lives who focus on them in a way which made them feel

special. Just as Grant found that Ella had an incredibly close

relationship with her Grandpa Ross, the most impacting figure on my life

is my 88-year-old maternal grandmother, Martha Rae Hill, a person who

has taught me more than anyone. A deeply religious woman, Grandma

Hill has provided wisdom and guidance since my early childhood. When

my mother and father were first married with two children, my older

brother and I, they could not afford a home; Grandma Hill allowed them

to stay with her until they had saved enough money to purchase a home.

She eventually decided to move in with us and was instrumental in my

upbringing.

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As a child I would always hear grandmother speak of the

oppressive conditions her father, Joe Lyons, encountered as a

sharecropper in Sumter County, Alabama in the 1920s. Similar to

Baker’s grandparents’ narratives about slavery which connected Ella

Baker to a long lineage of courageous relatives, my grandmother also told

stories about our family. As a little girl she remembered spending

weekends at her grandmother’s home. She and her siblings would gather

around the heated stove to listen to the stories of her father’s mother,

Great-Great-Grandma Francis, who lived most of her life under slavery.

These heroic stories of courage, according to Grandma Hill, paved the

way for her father’s strong stance against abusive and exploitive

practices in the sharecropping industry which was known as a form of

semi-slavery.

She often told the story of Great-Grandpa Lyons attempt to

organize the local community sharecroppers to fight the exploitative

conditions of white store owners. His life was threatened by one store

owner, Randle Oliver, who found Daddy Lyons’ knowledge of math and

reading skills disturbing. As one of a few literate men in the community,

Daddy Lyons posed a tangible threat to exploitive store owners who

benefited from black sharecroppers inability to read. According to

Ransby, Baker’s Grandpa Ross taught himself to read and saw education

as a means of overcoming oppression; this was also true of Daddy Lyons.

Grandma Hill told the story numerous times of her father riding into

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town to “settle up,” a common phrase used by black sharecroppers who

purchased goods based off of store credit derived from crop trade-in.

White store owners often overcharged for their goods and gave

sharecroppers about half the value of the crops’ worth.

When the store owner was unsuccessful at swindling Daddy Lyons

out of his crops, he grew angry and violent. Grandmother recalls the

store owner saying that he, along with other men, would place Daddy

Lyons dead body in the Tombigbee River. Grandma Hill spoke about the

fear of losing her father because many black men in the town came up

missing and no one dared look for them out of fear of reprisal. The 1955

death of the young Emmett Till often came up when Grandmother

described missing black men in rivers. Grandmother would finish the

story in a resounding voice: “Daddy didn’t back down!” as she ended by

saying the men never bothered her father.

Grandma Hill remembers her father as a strong-willed,

compassionate man who would give crops to other families who were less

fortunate. This gave me greater insight to why Grandma Hill always had

a deep sense of compassion for others who were in need. She, in fact,

was sharing with me the tradition of service to community found in our

family. This is a woman I witnessed numerous times give others her last,

from children, grandchildren, nephews, friends, and neighbors. As a little

boy, I heard a knock on the door and there stood a middle-aged, white

gentleman and a younger white woman in her late thirties. The man

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asked for “Mrs. Hill” and as Grandmother slowly walked to the bottom of

the stairs, the gentleman and young lady both yelled “Mrs. Hill!” They

began to hug her neck. It was sheer love that radiated from the people

and my grandmother as well. The gentlemen said, “You have a special

grandmother young man, you are very lucky.” The man said that

Grandmother had worked as a cook at his father’s emergency clinic and

was the most compassionate woman they had ever encountered,

although she labored as a cook in a racially hostile environment. What I

noticed about Grandmother was her willingness to transcend hate-filled

spaces of Jim and Jane Crow-ism of the 1940s, 1950s, and 1960s, and

through love and compassion she worked to create a better tomorrow for

her grandchildren.

Her narratives taught me the importance of never compromising

one’s integrity under adverse conditions. Her life reminds me of what Hip

Hop artist, Kanye West, exclaims: “I get down for my grandfather who

took my mama and put her in the seat where white folks didn’t want her

to eat . . . she participated in the sit ins; with this in my blood I knew I

was bound to be different” (2004, track 8). As a community activist,

these deeds of courage allow me to carry on the tradition of fighting for

social justice.

I was Somebody’s Child in a Compassionate Community

“All of us are our momma’s child and our daddy’s kid, whether we

like it or not,” West proclaims when he points to parenting as a

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foundational concept in human development (p. 89). This is true of

Baker’s upbringing as her parents instilled religion, love, education and

service. Her parents met in secondary school and were working class

blacks. Her father, Blake Baker, was a waiter on a ferry which traveled

from Norfolk to Washington and caused him to be away from the family

quite often. Ella’s mother, Anna, was committed to grounding Ella and

her siblings in religion, civil service, and the importance of education.

By Dyson’s (2000) accounts, Baker came from a long line of

remarkable, churched-based, black women who worked within local

communities in the name of social justice. “Women clubs” is a common

term for such groups as they tended to the poor, ill, and needy mothers

giving birth. The missionary deeds of Anna Baker and her cohorts had a

major impact on Baker’s ideology of working with communities on a

“grassroots level.”

Anna Baker did good works. She fed the hungry and bathed the

unwashed. Anna had a passion for reaching out to the less

fortunate which had a profound impact on Ella. She was an

awesome figure who, nonetheless, inspired admiration and

gratitude. (Grant,1998, p. 17).

As part of the church women’s ministry, Ella witnessed her mother’s

activism first-hand as she accompanied Anna, who often spoke publicly,

on trips where she honed her oratorical skills. Ella was able to learn the

importance of public speaking as a means to connect with people. Baker

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was an individual who did not like to draw attention in any fashion and

Ransby believes that she learned humbleness from her mother as well as

how to listen to the concerns of marginalized community members.

Through missionary works, Anna was able demonstrate a model for Ella

as she, along with many church women, used their privilege in assisting

disadvantaged women and children.

Although she wasn’t affiliated with any organized missionary

groups like Anna Baker, my mother had a similar spirit of empathy for

the less fortunate within the community. I remember how she quietly

went about helping others without making it a public scene. Caring for

others was a natural character trait that mother possessed often going

around the community offering to attend to the babies of teenage

mothers, thus allowing them free time to finish high school. I remember

riding around the community with bags of clothes that she would offer to

single mothers. Those acts by my mother instilled in me a sense of

empathic awareness and the commitment to always be concerned about

others.

The black church has always functioned as an educational site

where children are taught the importance of compassion, love, service,

and lifelong skills. West recalls his youth in the black church: “When I

was growing up, we were targeted for love and people cared for us. They

were concerned about us. Folk in the church would give you generous

portions of wisdom, most often unsolicited” (p. 91). Through the rituals,

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customs, and historical practices of the black church young people are

able to spiritually, intellectually, and emotionally mature, surrounded by

unconditional love from individuals who sacrifice to prepare the next

generation. These folks consist of deacons, mothers of the church, senior

ushers, ministers, and program directors all working together with the

precious youth of the church.

Like Baker, the church served as the most influential presence in

my life as a child and it shaped my sense of serving the community. First

Baptist Church in Graysville, Alabama prepared and nurtured me to take

active service roles in the community. From ushering at church, to

assisting Mrs. Edna Jones down the stairs after church, to Grandma

Bertha Williams preparing grape juice and bread for the last meal

honoring, to helping Grandpa Nathan fill the pool with water for baptism

service, through the church community I learned to value the act of

service.

An important developmental skill I learned through my black

church experience involved public speaking. I can clearly remember

delivering speeches at the local church. This was my sanctuary and I

would just be filled with excitement and anticipation for our special

programs at church. These opportunities to speak allowed me to share

my love for speech and language. People often referred to me as “Lil

Preacher” and the elders would stand at the edge of their seats when I

began my speech as a sign of encouragement and expectation. I

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remember the deacons smiling on the front bench saying, “Come on, Lil

Preacher, come on.” This type of call-and-response, born out of the black

church rhetorical style, gave me permission to be Derrick.

One landmark church experience at the age of twelve caused me to

understand my gift for speaking. During a tribute to Dr. King, I was

afforded the opportunity to recite his “I have a Dream” speech which

would set me down a path to social justice. I witnessed the members

participate with me in a call-and-response fashion as they hung on my

every word. When I began to recite, “Let freedom ring,” the deacons

started to stand and say “Come on, Young Williams, speak.” A spirit of

excitement, energy, and enthusiasm began to take over. I knew that

something special was happening on that January evening which opened

my eyes to the joys and power of speaking publically in the service of

equality.

As in the case of Baker’s life, I too lived in an all-black community

with loving parents who stressed service to community through activism.

My mother, Audrey Williams, was very much like Ella’s mother, Anna,

who loved her children and always looked out for others in the

community. As a stay-at-home mother, my mother caringly shaped my

identity and social consciousness. She worked on developing character in

all of her four children through teaching self-love. My mother made sure

that my brother Eddie Jr., my two sisters Shuntae and Kristi, and I

developed an appreciation of our black culture through micro acts of

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community activism. I can remember Mother taking us to downtown

Birmingham during the Christmas season to visit a black Santa Claus.

At an early age we learned that blackness was socially meaningful and a

love-affirming quality. From ensuring that I had some black action

figures, to riding in the car to the sounds of Anita Baker, to her

wonderful compliments celebrating my dark skin, my mother taught me

how to love blackness.

My mother always made conscious decisions to surround us with

black culture as I often heard her explain to friends and family that she

always wanted to keep us around people who would protect us from

white racism, bigotry, and hatred. Along with my father, she made the

active choice of staying in Graysville Heights instead of Forestdale, a very

unwelcoming all-white neighborhood. I remember black schoolmates

speaking about white neighbors moving, building tall fences, and even

burning crosses to deter black residents. Mom did not want to have her

children subjected to such a cold unconnected neighborhood.

The city of Graysville was sadly divided into two sections: “the

black side” and “the white side.” Graysville is a neighborhood about five

minutes away from where my father was raised. Several of my mother

and father’s siblings also lived in Graysville and I got the opportunity to

be influence by them in a spirited way. It taught me the importance of

self-love, seeing my dad interact with his brothers and sisters in a loving

way and watching the incredible bond between my mother and her

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mother, who were virtually inseparable. Baker similarly highlights such

important family and community ties in an interview:

The sense of community was pervasive in the black community as

a whole, I mean especially the community that had a sense of

roots. This community had been composed to a large extent by

relatives. Over the hills was my grandmother’s sister who was

married to my Uncle Carter, and up the grove was another relative

who had a place. So it was a deep sense of community. I think

these are the things that helped to strengthen my concept about

the need for people to have a sense of their own value, and their

strengths, and it became accentuated when I began to travel in the

forties for the National Association for the Advancement of Colored

People. (West and Mooney, 1993, p. 200)

My neighborhood had all of the important elements Baker speaks about

in terms of developing young folks. I am thankful to all of my elders and

family members who shared time with me and cared for me in a way that

made me feel special and loved. Graysville was a place where mother

entrusted the whole community with her children’s upbringing, as I

encountered relationships with an array of people who taught, listened,

and encouraged. Without romanticizing my youth, Graysville had its

share of poverty, fatherless children, drugs, and shady characters, but

the collective community looked out for its children.

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Along with nurturing a sense of black consciousness my mother

participated in acts of political resistance. For example, my mother

learned of a small campaign that was receiving momentum to push for a

national holiday to honor Dr. King’s struggle for social justice. People

began to advocate for the holiday during the mid-1980s with much

backlash; it was eventually voted down in the Senate. Mother already

had taken the initiative to keep us out of school as she saw the refusal to

acknowledge King’s sacrifice as disrespectful. Many of our friends’

parents also joined in and kept their children out on King’s birthday

which caused notice amongst school officials in Birmingham. The

Jefferson County school board, the district where I attended grade

school, later deemed the day as “teacher’s work day” to compensate for

the lack of attendance by black students without acknowledging its

reason. Ultimately Dr. King’s birthday became a national holiday in

1983.

Social Fathers and Two-Tiered Mentoring

Although there have been several biographies written exclusively

on the life of Ella, there is not much mention of her relationship with her

father, Blake. Ella loved her father dearly, and from several indicators he

was a principled man. According to Grant, Blake was similar to most

men of his generation, largely devoted and committed working fathers.

“Blake’s job as a waiter on a ferry took him from Norfolk to Washington

and back in 24-hours stints, so he was home every other day. Ella

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remembered him as being warm and caring” (1998, p. 13). Blake’s job

often caused him to be away from the family, but Ella’s father was the

kind of parent who ensured the children went to places like the zoo, on

ferry rides, and to the circus. Grant found Blake to be a perfect balance

of Anna, the matriarch, who served more as the disciplinarian of the

family. Tim Russert believed this is true for many working-class fathers

who express and communicate their familial love through their jobs.

My father was a dedicated iron worker and also played a major role

in shaping my activist ways. My brother and I learned early of the

privilege of having a loving and dedicated father. We often had to share

our father with other males in the community as my father, Eddie

Dwight Williams Sr., had to look out for the fatherless black boys who

were brought along with us on outings. My father enacted what civil

rights activist Dick Gregory speaks of as the commitment of black men to

care for young boys within the community who did not have fathers in

their homes. Joseph White refers to these men as “social fathers,” a

black man within the community who looks out for fatherless boys.

Although we lived on a community block in which all the families had

two parents in the home, just up the block were families headed by

single parents, often women, who lived in poverty. According to Akbar

(1991) this was a common occurrence during segregation, where black

communities were comprised of diverse social classes such as doctors,

Williams 25

teachers, custodians, and sharecroppers. Such diverse communities

provided young boys with multiple models outside of their homes.

Watching my father take time with boys who had no father taught

me the importance of looking out for others and using one’s privileged

position to assist in the development of community members. I will never

forget my father’s compassion during a humid Alabama evening when we

were in route to a RUN-D.M.C concert. Just before leaving the

community, we came to a stop sign and my father noticed a young man

named Greg who was 16. More importantly, it was my first introduction

to “multi-mentoring,” or as I refer to it in the study, as “two-tiered

mentoring.” I mean by this, the act of mentoring a younger person who

will, in turn, mentor an even younger individual. I remember my father

asking Greg what he was up to, and when he replied, “nothing much,”

my father asked him if he would like to go to the RUN-D.M.C concert. His

eyes lit up as he ran to his home to ask his mother for permission. Greg

sat in the passenger seat beside my father as he spoke with him about

manhood and responsibility. My brother and I were around 10 and 12 at

the time, and Father gave Greg a huge responsibility once we got to the

concert. He told Greg that he was in charge and he wanted him to look

out for my brother and me in the concert. My father notified him that he

would be outside waiting for us in the car. I remember Greg saying, “Yes

sir, Mr. Williams, I won’t let you down.”

Williams 26

Inside the concert, Greg paid great attention to us and watched out

for my brother and me. After the concert, my father and Greg continued

to have their conversation about looking out for younger boys in the

community and being a positive influence for those boys. After we

dropped Greg off, my brother and I asked Dad why he chose to pick Greg

up. He simply shared with us that Greg’s father was not around and he

felt as if it was his job to look out for him whenever he could. This taught

my brother and me the importance of selflessness and the concept of

two-tiered mentoring as Greg and other younger males were taught to

look out for the younger boys in the community. These lessons of

sharing, love, struggle, hope, and mentoring were learned throughout my

childhood and taught me the value the work of building community.

Progressive Education

bell hooks contends, “Just as the family is often a training ground

for life in community, it is the place where we are first given a sense of

the meaning and power of education” (2003, p. 117). Baker came from

two generations, Grandpa Ross and Anna Baker, who stressed education

as a key family value. According to Dallard (1990) Anna stressed the

importance of education to Ella and her siblings: “Mrs. Baker firmly

believed that education was the best way to prepare a person to live a

worthwhile life” (p. 21). With her mothers’ encouragement Ella, in 1918,

enrolled at Shaw University in Raleigh, North Carolina, completing both

high school and college. There Baker continued to receive a strong

Williams 27

biblical foundation since the university was founded as a Baptist

Institution for blacks in 1865. The opportunity to study at Shaw

introduced Baker to new intellectual ideas allowing her to become more

independently thoughtful of issues outside of her close-circled

community upbringing. Ransby (2003) points out that while Baker

already had a profound sense of service, it was at Shaw where she

learned how embellish her skills and expand her consciousness:

She matured socially, intellectually, and politically in this

environment . . . Shaw nurtured Ella Baker’s intellectual growth at

the same time that it inadvertently fueled her rebellious spirit. Her

curiosity about the larger world deepened as she was exposed to

new ideas and broadened her intellectual horizons. (pp. 46-47)

Despite learning new and promising ideas, Baker was able to balance her

formal education with the values that shaped her from an early age:

community compassion, self-love, and service. In college, students often

take courses that change their lives sending them down paths they never

imagined possible. Usually this involves an encounter with a professor

who assists in the development of a student’s thinking at a

transformative moment in their maturing.

Professor Benjamin Brawley was an important teacher for Baker

“who had the most profound impact on her thinking” (Ransby, 2003, p.

55). Brawley served as the debate coach and advised the student

newspaper for which Baker worked (Ransby, 2003). Baker was a

Williams 28

remarkable student which may explain why she and Brawley found

common interest in each other. Besides their academic relationship,

Baker admired Brawley for his ability to show genuine concern for

students beyond the classroom. Brawley was a wonderful mentor to

Baker, taking time to work with the young impressionable woman.

Ransby shares the following, “A sensitive man, he was committed to

racial equality and community service. He spoke out against racial

discrimination and the second-class status imposed on African

Americans of his generation” (p. 55). The relationship was instrumental

in the sense that Baker witnessed first-hand the power of mentoring. It

was a skill she would go on to master.

I had a similar occurrence with a teacher-mentor who patiently

worked with me in progressing my thinking. I grew up in the shadow of

the civil rights movement where racial and class politics were quite

visible. I followed in the tradition of the “race man,” adopting the

philosophies of Dr. King, Malcolm X, W.E.B Dubois, and Frederick

Douglass. It was at the University of Northern Iowa that I would

encounter progressive thinking that would challenge my ideas in regards

to oppression.

During my first semester of graduate course work, I happened to

register for course entitled “Text, Context, and Performance for Social

Change,” offered by Dr. Karen Mitchell, a life-long activist. The course

focused on the issue of sexual assault and violence against women; it

Williams 29

was a topic that I had given small consideration to in the scope of my

activist work. Dr. Mitchell always acknowledged how race and class

oppression were issues that deserved full attention, but she always also

spoke of how gender oppression played a significant role in the struggle

for social justice. I clearly recall Dr. Mitchell posing a question to me

about how “male privilege” operated within the civil rights movement

where black women were both invaluable, yet invisible. She asked me if I

included black women’s politics in my quest for uplifting the black

community, and I could not honestly answer that question. It was Dr.

Mitchell who initiated my thinking beyond racial politics to include the

ways in which sexism oppress all women.

Baker spent close to a decade at Shaw from 1918 until she

graduated in 1927. During this time, Professor Brawley gave Baker the

skills and experience which prepared her to do activist work. Northern

Iowa offered a similar content for me, and Dr. Mitchell’s course was part

of a pilot project which used performance studies as a means of creating

social change. In the class, I learned of the power of performance and

how to use it critically to address the issue of sexual assault and violence

on college campuses. The success of the course resulted in Dr. Mitchell

facilitating workshops across the country at university and national

conferences. Dr. Mitchell took me to several of these conferences, at

times forgoing her workshop fees to bring me along so I could receive

first-hand experience in leading and conducting workshops. I had

Williams 30

wonderful mentors throughout my time at the university, most notably

Dr. Paul Siddens III and Dr. Clark Porter, but Dr. Mitchell’s and my

relationship grew out of compassionate dedication and the joy she

received watching me develop into a progressive man.

Ground Worker

After graduating from Shaw, Baker set her sights on New York, in

particular Harlem, to land a job and start a career. She joined the

migration of many blacks from the South to Harlem during the 1920s. By

the time Baker arrived, the Harlem Renaissance was prominent and she

enjoyed the cultural and intellectual environment. Shortly after Baker’s

arrival in New York the Great Depression set in, but she managed to find

work in several fields from education to journalism. One of Baker’s most

befitting jobs came with the Works Progress Administration, a program

introduced by Franklin D. Roosevelt in the mid-1930s. Around 1936,

Ella began working as a consumer education teacher helping individuals

to find work for which the government would pay them for such as

artists using their skills to paint murals for public buildings (Ransby,

2003). Working with the WPA program increased Baker’s organizing

skills within formal institutions while simultaneously focusing her

passion for helping marginalized people.

At the turn of the 1940s, Baker would land one of many positions

that she held within the NAACP during her career as a civil rights

activist. Her first position came about when she was hired as an

Williams 31

assistant field secretary primarily working in the South (Dallard, 1990).

The job required Baker to spend about one half of the year traveling to

various Southern states to work with communities in efforts to increase

NAACP membership and strengthen local branches. In the dangerous

pre-civil rights culture of the South, Baker worked diligently to convince

black citizens to join the NAACP. Experiencing early success, it did not

take long for others to notice Baker’s talent for mobilizing everyday

citizens through effective local organizing strategies. “Over the course of

Baker’s years with the association’s national office, from 1940 to 1946,

its membership mushroomed from 50,000 in 1940 to almost 450,000 by

1945” (Ransby, p. 108). During this time-span Baker rose through the

ranks to be named the association’s national director of branches in

1943.

While Baker believed in the overall objective of the NAACP, she

often disagreed with its strategies and approaches, mainly in regards to

membership recruitment and legal actions. The fundamental goal of the

NAACP was to provide legal support for blacks to combat social

injustices. Shortly after her start with the organization, Baker became

increasingly frustrated with this strategic approach and found it to be

limiting. There were two major oppositions between Baker and the

NAACP with regard to effectively bringing about social change. First, the

NAACP’s goal entailed courting professionals for membership within the

organization, unlike Baker’s aim to move it into a mass action

Williams 32

organization. Secondly, the organization believed that national victories

would translate to local communities through legal means, whereas

Baker advocated for a more localized grassroots approach that actively

engaged communities with issues specific to them.

Both Baker and the NAACP agreed on the need to increase the

overall number of members in the South, but respectfully disagreed on

exactly which individuals to target. According to Dallard (1990), the

NAACP’s focus for membership increase evolved around professionals:

“The NAACP fought for the rights of all blacks. But for a long time after

the organization began, most of its southern black members were

professional men and women-doctors, teachers, business owners, and

lawyers” (p. 45). Dallard cites the NAACP’s reasoning was due in part

because they figured that black professionals would be easy to mobilize.

Baker believed in mass action organizing with a focus on common

citizens. “Ella Baker, however, felt that the organization should do more

to encourage ordinary workers to become members. These blacks-

janitors, street cleaners, construction workers, gardeners, housekeepers,

drivers” (Dallard, 1990, p. 45).

I am Everyday People

Ransby (2003) links Baker’s commitment to common people to her

trademark in the trenches’ approach to activism. “One important aspect

of Baker’s efforts to recruit more active members, men and women, into

the ranks of the NAACP was her personal approach to political work . . .

Williams 33

This type of personalism of humanism became Ella Baker’s trademark as

an organizer” (p. 136). Baker often wrote personal letters to branch

leaders and key workers offering encouraging words and gratitude for

their tireless efforts to the movement. Ransby points to the incredibly

personalized letter that Baker wrote to a Birmingham chapter branch

director of the NAACP, in which she makes reference to the localized

nickname of Birmingham as the “Magic City.”

As a resident of Birmingham, I learned as a child that “Magic City”

was the affectionate term for the city mainly used by the local residents.

The nickname was given in part due to the extraordinary growth of the

city during the early 1900s because of its industrial capacity, primarily

the coal mine and steel industry. The economic opportunity along with

the population growth gave rise to the term “Magic City.” Birmingham is

a relatively small city, mostly known for its racially violent history. After

the horrific bombings of the four little black girls at a Birmingham

church, the city became known as “Bombingham” nationally, but ‘Magic

City’ was the localized nickname many local residents still use today.

This small detail of naming should not be ignored. For Baker to

refer to Birmingham as the “Magic City” demonstrates her personal

encounters and respect for local citizens and their community practices.

Baker took time to understand local people by staying in their homes,

eating at their tables, and speaking in their churches thus forming deep

friendships and lifelong commitments in the process.

Williams 34

Baker attempted to localize collective struggles when she suggested

that the city of 200,000 break into smaller localized NAACP branches.

She believed that localized micro practices were more effective than

monolithic approaches to problem solving. Although she met resistance

from the more established functions within the NACCP, Baker’s vision of

democratic participation quickly caught on amongst local civil rights

community activists such as Birmingham’s Ruby and Fred

Shuttlesworth. They invited her to speak in 1959 at the third anniversary

of the Alabama Christian Movement for Human Rights third anniversary.

In the speech, Baker spoke passionately about the need of local

communities to define their own strategies to combat local issues. While

the NAACP, with its influential national legal-based approach can change

laws as a means to bring about social change, Baker believed that the

greatest articulation and solution to social problem derives from the

individuals who live within it.

Establishing credibility amongst the local citizens was important,

and Ella felt that credibility should be earned. Baker avoided going into

communities banking off the NAACP’s national credibility as a legal

organization. Instead, she worked to derive credibility from on-the-

ground work, humbling herself by listening to citizens speak of their

particular issues and assisting them in connecting those local issues to

larger systemic problems. Baker never seemed to forget how she too,

Williams 35

regardless of her professional positions, was connected to the struggle for

racial equality and could learn a great deal from local folks.

Ella Baker possessed an intrinsic ability to connect with common

people and the dynamics of their communities through carefully listening

to and valuing their ideas and concerns. She saw communities as assets

and vehicles for changing their situations. Kretzmann and McKnight

(1993) describe this approach to social change as “mobilizing

community’s assets.” Asset-based community development is a method

used to mobilize the collective strengths of a community to build stronger

communities and empower its members to become more independent

(Kretzmann & McKnight, 1993). Meeting people on their level seemed to

be a hallmark of Baker’s philosophy, as she once stated: “We must have

the nerve to take the Association to people wherever they are” (Ransby,

2003, p. 105). It is important to note that while Baker had great

admiration for the objectives of the NAACP, she felt as if each community

she worked with possessed a unique epistemological understanding of

their social conditions. By valuing the knowledge, wisdom, and practices

of localized communities, Ella Baker recognized that local and embedded

ways of “knowing” were essential components to the livelihoods of

community participants. Her activism emphasized the need for pluralism

that encouraged other ways of knowing. Throughout her work with

several civil rights organizations, Baker often made an appeal for

“collective wisdom” based on local and indigenous knowledge.

Williams 36

One of the primary objectives of the NAACP was to get laws passed

that would protect black citizens from the rampant racial violence they

faced fighting segregation. Through legal means, the organization

attempted to get the United States Congress to address lynching by

passing laws against the brutal acts, as well as working to eliminate Jim

and Jane Crow laws (Dallard, 1990). With limited resources, the NAACP

figured that the best strategy to achieve such goals would be to focus on

particular cases and eventually those landmark cases, if won, would

translate into general victories. The NAACP relied heavily upon the courts

and constitutional law to fight against racial injustices. The use of

legalized language allowed the NAACP to secure landmark victories in the

courts such as the Brown v. Board of Education decision in 1954. Baker

understood the benefits of such victories, yet she simultaneously

understood how important it was to keep local citizens’ issues specific to

their communities and to incorporate national legal victories into the

everyday struggles of local citizens. Instead of going into Southern

communities and imposing a generalized understanding of racial issues,

Baker relied on local narratives of community members. “For example,

there might be a need for a traffic light in an area in which blacks lived.

Ella Baker would advise the branch on how to present the case to city

officials” (Dallard, 1990, pp. 47-48).

According to Ransby, Baker’s radical democratic participatory

vision intersects content and process within the context of organizing:

Williams 37

“Ella Baker’s vision of radical democracy was a profound historical

concept, based on the idea that in order to achieve democratic ideals one

first had to assess the specific historical parameters of exclusion,

especially racism, sexism, and class exploitation” (pp. 368-369).

The best demonstration of this interweaving can be found in

Baker’s work as a field secretary with the NAACP. Baker’s meteoric rise

within the ranks of the NAACP is a testament to her skills as a

community organizer. Eventually, she was named director of branches

for the NAACP, making her the highest ranking woman within the

organization. This was a remarkable accomplishment. By Ransby’s

estimation, Baker and other women worked under rampant sexist

conditions within the NAACP where the majority of the senior positions

were occupied by males. Unfortunately, Baker found herself constantly

at odds with the NAACP over strategies for creating change in local

communities. Rejecting the notion of expert or professional invention,

she was never afraid to share her displeasure of hierarchies and elitism

within the NAACP organization. Ransby (2003) quotes Baker: “I never

worked for an organization but for a cause” (p. 211). She believed that

the “cause” rested in the people and their ability to transform their

conditions through shared partnership.

In contrast, Kretzmann and McKnight (1993) believe many well

meaning organizations practice “deficiency-oriented” models when

working with marginalized communities. The deficiency model assumes

Williams 38

that “expertise” is needed in order to solve an issue, often depriving

individuals of agency and the capacity to change their conditions

through their own actions. Kretzmann and McKnight (1993) further

explain the impact such a model has on communities seeking social

change: “They think of themselves and their neighborhood as

fundamentally deficient, victims incapable of taking charge of their lives

and of their community’s future” (p. 4). “Asset-based community

development”, such as the kind Baker practiced, involves the recognition

and value of communities and their ability to become active agents of

change. Moreover, “asset-based community development acknowledges

and embraces particularly the strong neighborhood-rooted traditions of

community organizing, community economic development and

neighborhood planning” (Kretzmann & McKnight, 1993, p. 9).

Baker’s asset-based community development embodied what

Kretzmann and McKnight (2003) contend is an “internal focus” on each

community that she worked with. This focus concentrates primarily on

the list of items and problem-solving capabilities of local community

members, or as Kretzmann and McKnight offer: “To stress the primacy of

local definition, investment, creativity, hope, and control” (p. 9). Such

internal focus required Baker to forge strong relationships between

herself and local residents. As would become clear in my own activism,

enduring relationships with individual community members is the

lifeblood of grassroots activism.

Williams 39

Martin, Masculinity, and Messianism

Progressive black masculinities seek to operate outside of the

traditional notions of masculinity. Mutua reminds us of the need to

rework black masculinity through a democratic vision where systems of

hierarchical social positions are rejected. By understanding Baker’s

democratic philosophy, I am constantly reminded of the consequences of

replacing one model of black masculinities only to reinforce another

singular model which limits the lives of black men. In my attempt to

expand black masculinity in a progressive manner, therefore, I cannot

lean upon old masculine models of leadership. For real change to occur,

a different type of leadership must be explored which focuses on

democratic participation by local citizens. A useful example of this can be

found in Baker’s work and relationship with Dr. King. In 1946, Baker left

her position as national director of branches with the NAACP to raise her

niece Jackie in New York. She continued to work with local help

organizations and returned to the NAACP in 1954 as president of the

New York City branch. The brave acts of Rosa Parks and others during

the 1955 Montgomery Bus Boycott led Baker to Atlanta in 1957 to

organize the founding meeting of the Southern Christian Leadership

Conference led by Dr. King. According to Ransby (2003), Baker had

reservations about how the SCLC was formed because she and King

disagreed on the leadership direction. Baker saw the boycott as an ideal

occasion to establish grassroots mass mobilization. From the beginning

Williams 40

of her work with the NAACP and later with the SCLC all the way to her

involvement with SNCC, Baker rejected patriarchal models of leadership

which privileged a top-down strategy.

Although there is no evidence that she identified as a self-

proclaimed “feminist,” Baker’s actions suggest that she took issue with

leadership that followed traditional male ideology. Baker seemed to be

concerned about what Norman Kelley (2004) refers to as “symbolic

political mobilization” which he argues replaces effective organizing for

social change. Dyson also asserts that Baker was disappointed in what

she believed was King’s inability to organize and empower others to

become leaders:

Baker was critical as well of the unhealthy dependence that most

traditional leadership instilled in people . . . Baker urged

skepticism about charismatic leadership, the sort that King

represented and that to her was fundamentally antidemocratic.

(2000, p. 298)

Madeleine Kunin’s text on women and leadership, Pearls, Politics, and

Power 2008, may provide a suitable interpretation of Baker’s leadership

philosophy Kunin contends that many women adopt what she cites as a

“transformational” approach to leadership whereas “transactional”

leadership has a more masculine association. Kunin bases her claims on

the research of leadership scholar James Burns (1978) who defines

transformational leadership as the ability to “shape and alter and elevate

Williams 41

the motives and values and goals of followers through the vital teaching

role of leadership” (p. 425). Burns goes on to add that transactional

leadership consists of: “Common aims acting for the collective interests

of followers but a bargain to aid the individual interests of persons or

groups going their separate ways.” If we examine Baker within this

context, she exhibited many of the characteristics of a transformational

leader; yet, it is important to note that Burns does not suggest that these

styles are either mutually exclusive or interchangeable. This is not an

attempt to cast Dr. King’s leadership as transactional as there are

numerous examples of King working to transform individuals within the

movement.

According to Payne (1995), Ella believed that a leader’s first

responsibility should involve developing leadership potential in others.

“Under the best circumstances, traditional leadership creates a

dependency relationship between the leaders and the led. Talk of leading

people to freedom is almost a contradiction in terms . . . thus leadership

should be a form of teaching” (p. 93). Baker taught leadership in a

democratic fashion by mentoring others who could, in turn, become and

train leaders in their own communities. For this reason, I now turn to

stories and principles of mentoring as I have experienced and practiced

them in the spirit of Ella Baker.

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Fundi’s Fruits: Impactful Mentoring

I think mentoring is one of the most power acts of humanity. A

large reason for my growth and development as a progressive black man

is my fortune in being around wonderful people of different races,

genders, sexual orientations, ethnicities, and class backgrounds. Each of

these selfless individuals made it possible for me to see beyond self-

imposed limitations to greater possibilities. “Folk in the Little League or

in the beauty salon just kept dropping all these different pearls that you

didn’t even realize were wisdom until you strung them together in a

moment of crisis,” West shares (p. 91). I first learned the importance of

mentoring from a Little League football coach by the name of Sylvester

Hawkins who worked as a custodian for Brookville elementary in

Graysville. Mr. Hawkins was extremely active in the community and

worked with multiple children. I still remember his long talks about life,

always asking questions that made me think critically. We both shared a

love for sports, but our relationship was much deeper than a

conversation about sports scores. We talked about life as he required his

step-son, Roderick, and I to help clean the school while he talked and

listened to us for hours at a time. The most important virtue I took from

Mr. Hawkins, who has now passed away, is his compassion for seeing

young folks develop character. He evoked in me a desire to mentor.

Grant produced a documentary on Baker’s life entitled Fundi, a

Swahili word which means one who possesses a craft and shares that

Williams 43

craft with others. As Dallard (1990) suggests, “It is the name given to

someone who generously and unselfishly shares his or her knowledge

and skills with others” (p. 7). This is a befitting name for a woman who

worked to ensure that the next generation possessed skills to carry on

the struggle. Historically speaking, there have always been individuals

like Baker who take it upon themselves to ensure that the next

generation activists have the tools to carry on in the struggle for social

justice.

During my time in Iowa, I met a person who would come to be my

mentor and protector in this line of work. Like Baker, he was a wonderful

social mentor and served as a big brother, friend, supporter, and teacher.

I met David Goodson in Waterloo while attending graduate school, and

he has had a very impressionable impact on my line of activism. While

waiting to hear a Michael Eric Dyson lecture at the University of

Northern Iowa, David approached me and asked “What’s up? My name is

David. Came to see Dyson too?” He then asked where I got the book I

was holding in my hand, Dyson’s Making Malcolm. While Dyson had to

cancel the lecture that night, David and I talked for about an hour and

he encouraged me to call him anytime I needed anything. David and I

would go on to forge a wonderful relationship as he actively encouraged

my activism by inviting me to community functions, introducing me to

key community figures, and allowing me time on his radio show as well

as other projects. I found David’s life remarkable as he rose from the

Williams 44

ashes of despair to become a beacon of hope for many. Before turning his

life around, David had found himself trapped and, like so many black

males, had fallen victim to drugs, incarceration, and irresponsibility.

Facing ninety-nine years in prison for intent to distribute crack cocaine,

David defended himself in court and received a lesser sentence. With that

reprieve came a sense of purpose and a promise to change his life. While

in prison, David found a new sense of direction, thanks to the

mentorship of a long-time community activist by the name of Jimmy

Porter.

Mr. Porter is one of Waterloo’s most beloved activists, establishing

the first black nonprofit radio station in Iowa. Like so many blacks at the

time, Mr. Porter came to Iowa from Mississippi during the great

migration to work on the railroads in Waterloo. Mr. Porter soon

discovered that the black community needed a medium to communicate

their concerns, so he started KBBG radio station out of his basement.

The station grew to a well-established organization. Mr. Porter mentored

David while in prison, after his release when he was enrolled in a two

year college, and while he finished a master’s degree in social work from

the University of Northern Iowa. David began his grassroots activism,

referring to himself as a minister of social justice. He worked with black

males in prison and transitioning out of prison. He testified as an expert

witness on crack cocaine, and worked with troubled black males in

schools.

Williams 45

Once again, I am reminded of the importance of two-tiered

mentoring as David learned the value of sharing and imparting wisdom

from Mr. Porter, and passed that on to a young person like me. David’s

willingness to engage younger activists is an echo of Ella’s effective

mentoring within the SNCC. David’s mentoring approach can be linked

to Baker’s method because both value listening and having meaningful

dialogue as the basis of strong relationships.

Baker would get her chance to implement her democratic vision for

social change with an act of defiance that would spark a younger

generation of activists. On February 1, 1960, Jibreel Khazan, Ezell Blair

Jr., Franklin Eugene McCain, Joseph Alfred McNeil, and David Leinail

Richmond sat down at a “whites only” lunch counter at Woolworth in

Greensboro, North Carolina. Unlike the pervious civil disobedience

protests five years prior, such as the 1955 Selma Bus Boycott, the lunch

counter sit-ins brought a new militancy to the fight for social equality.

The sit-ins were largely enacted by college-age students who wanted to

participate in the movement. Ella found this very promising.

The small protest led to a massive campaign which witnessed

similar sit-in demonstrations across the South. By the spring of 1960 sit-

in demonstrations had reached over 100 cities and received attention

within the civil rights movement. Enticed by the strong youth presence at

the sit-in demonstrations, Ella Baker saw the potential for a new spirited

approach to the existing social movement. “To Ella it was a dream come

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true. Here was the beginning of the civil rights revolution which she had

looked forward to since the days of the 1930s” (Grant, 1998, p. 125).

Baker would get an opportunity to satisfy her activist appetite for

grassroots community building efforts and youth engagement with the

chance meeting with sit-in participants leaders. The Southwide Student

Leadership Conference on Nonviolent Resistance to Segregation called

Baker. The conference was held on Easter weekend in 1960 at Shaw

University in Raleigh, North Carolina and exceeded Baker’s expectations

by attracting up to 200 participants (Ransby, 2003). As a result of the

conferences a student-led organization by the name of SNCC (Student

Nonviolent Coordinating Committee) was created with Baker’s behind-

the-scene mentoring tactics.

Baker and King were strongly at odds on the inclusion of youth in

the movement. West & Mooney (1993) cite Ella in her own words:

The Southern Christian Leadership Conference felt that they could

influence how things went. They were interested in having the

students become an arm of SCLC . . . At a discussion called by the

Reverend Dr. King, the SCLC leadership made decisions about who

would speak to whom to influence the student to become part of

SCLC. Well, I disagreed. There was no students at Dr. King’s

meeting. I was the nearest thing to a student, being the advocate,

you see. I also knew from the beginning that having a woman be

an executive of SCLC was not something that would go over with

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the male-dominated leadership . . . I wasn’t the one to say, yes,

because it came from the Reverend King . . . I was outraged. I

walked out. (p. 202)

Due to Baker’s strong will, that Dyson (2000) believes turned King off

because of his own sexist ways, King often overlooked Baker’s brilliant

ability to present progressive ideas. This ultimately caused Baker to part

ways with King and to resign her post as the executive director of the

SCLC. Dyson further acknowledges that Baker’s “democratic charisma”

led her to make her most important contribution to the entire movement,

which involved mobilizing young people, primarily college students.

Baker may have saved her best work for last through her dedication to

mentoring. After working with the NAACP and SCLC, Baker would finally

get an opportunity to witness her democratic vision in her work with

SNCC. Civil rights freedom fighter Andrew Young, an understudy of Dr.

King, offered these words: “Ella Baker was instrumental in founding two

major civil rights organizations, SCLC and SNCC. One of the

chairpersons of SNCC, Stokely Carmichael, is perhaps best known for

making the slogan “black power” famous (Dallard, 1990, p. 1).

Carmichael, also known as Kwame Ture, came to prominence in the

SNCC organization and pays tribute to Baker in the following comments:

“One of the most effective political organizers this country has ever

produced . . . Ms. Ella Baker, an African American woman who had

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devoted her entire adult life to organizing grassroots African resistance to

Southern apartheid” (Carmichael & Thelwell, 2003, p. 140).

Charles Payne (1995) captures the affection many young people

shared for Baker in their own testimony. For example, Bob Moses, a

prominent member of SNCC serving as a field secretary, was drawn to

Baker because her of personal caring for people on an individual level.

James Forman, another member of SNCC, also characterizes Baker as a

brilliant organizer by adding, “Ella Baker . . . is one of those many strong

black women who have devoted their lives to the liberation of their

people…without fanfare, publicity, or concern for personal credit”

(Dallard, 1990, p. 5).

Diane Nash held Baker in high esteem as well: “When I left her I

always felt that she’d picked me up and brushed me off emotionally”

(Payne, 1995, p. 97). Mary King remembers the important lesson she

learned from Baker in relation to organizing: “She taught me one of the

most important lessons I have learned in life: There are many legitimate

and effective avenues for social change and there is no single right way”

(Payne, 1995, p. 97).

Baker’s “participatory democracy” was contingent upon

empowering ordinary citizens through shared responsibility in solution-

based ideas for social change. Equally important is her approach to

leadership, finding strength in peoples’ ability to define and solve their

own issues. As a field secretary with the NAACP, Baker struggled to

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democratize the organization by eliminating structural hierarchies and

singular, male-centered leadership. Grassroots census building was a

major tactic for Baker as she traveled throughout the rural South,

working with communities to construct localized citizen-led branches. As

a staunch supporter of meeting people where they were, she managed to

build strong local branches by actively listening to each community’s

concerns and helping to tailor a specific approach to their problems.

According to Ransby (2003), Baker also actively addressed the

growing concern of people in the movement who felt a need to become

more militant in the cause of equality. Considered by some to reflect a

radical branch of the civil rights movement, Baker never advocated

violence as a path toward social change. Instead, she understood the

growing pulse of the younger generation to become more progressive

through nonviolent tactical thinking.

Finding her niche within the movement, Ella Baker was able to

supply young people with key mentorship. As Ransby (2003) points out:

“While Baker wanted to protect the students’ autonomy, she was not the

hands-off facilitator . . . She understood that the students needed

guidance, direction, and resources from veterans like herself” (p. 243).

Ransby goes on to describe Baker as a nurturing mother-like figure who

could relate and communicate with young people. This mixture of

nurture and guidance came in the form of an egalitarian method known

as “participatory democracy,” a way to gently influence the movements’

Williams 50

direction through sound counseling, but not to pre-determine its path.

Mueller (1990) makes a case for Baker as the founding mother of

“participatory democracy” through her activist efforts with SNCC:

When the SNCC was formed as a result of the Raleigh meeting, it

was Ella Baker’s unlabeled, but fully articulated, ideas on

participatory democracy that were most compatible with students’

search for autonomous and active leadership roles in the civil

rights movement. (p. 67)

Through participatory democracy, Baker was able to work with

young people on an in-depth level in order to teach these young activists

the process of community organizing. “The young people who formed

SNCC were the product of a number of political influences, but Ella

Baker’s was among the most significant” (Payne, 1995, p. 96). Baker

understood the impatience and frustration of young activists in SNCC,

and she sought to teach them how to channel their spirit and passion in

a constructive manner. According to Payne, most of the young activists

were highly suspicious of the older civil rights establishment. Through

careful mentoring and guidance, Baker was able to get the young people

of SNCC to see the value in diverse strategies and encourage

collaboration with the ministers in the SCLC. Payne demonstrates this by

pointing to SNCC member, Tim Jenkins, who credits Baker for moving

the groups’ initial approach of “attacking all ministers as Uncle Toms

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sell-outs” (p. 97). Jenkins attributes Baker with teaching the group how

to negotiate without compromising their principles.

As a young spirited activist in Waterloo, Iowa, I also had to learn

the strategy of negotiating and building relationships with people and

strategies that I disagreed with. David and Dr. Clark Porter were

instrumental mentors in this area as they invited me along on many

occasions to community and civic board meetings where I carefully

watched them negotiate with officials in order to move an agenda

forward. David often met with the parole commission, government and

city officials, ministers, and state representatives about building

alliances to work with black males. While persistent, David always kept

his calm and advocated for a collective action towards bettering the lives

of black males. Through his actions, he was able to establish several

programs that were aimed at combating problems faced by black males

in relation to incarceration and education. David eventually got an

opportunity to build alliances with the Black Hawk County probation

commission to work with juveniles in a program he designed called

P.A.S.S.P.O.R.T. Along with this work, he also forged a relationship with

local schools to conduct his P.A.S.S.P.O.R.T program with troubled black

males. Accompanying David on meetings, I developed the skills of

negotiation and networking. As Baker did with the passionate students

in SNCC, David was able to share with me the value of working with

others who may not share your strategies and approaches. He taught me

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how to articulate my positions in a compassionate spirit without

compromising my integrity.

I stand in relation to a long line of community organizers who have

come before me. I too believe that mentoring through democratic

participation is the most effective means to bring about social change. I

refer to this simply as the “Ella Effect.” Throughout this study, I advocate

the practice of tiered-mentoring as a continuum of Ella Baker’s work and

as a way of reaching black males at multiple stages in their transitional

development. This mentoring approach involves both internal and

external transformation and progression in term of expanding black

masculinity. In Chapters Four and Five, I provide detailed accounts of

progressive black masculinities in action through the Ella Effect. Baker’s

model of mentoring is a prime example of cross-generational partnership

for social change, or as Ransby (2003) captures in Baker’s words: “an

opportunity for adults and youth to work together to provide genuine

leadership” (p. 234). Baker often would say: “Give people light and they

will find a way” (Ransby, 2003, p. 105). In my work, I look to give young

black men the light on the issue of black masculinity with the hopes that

they will move to a place of love and growth. In the following chapter, I

take the story of my own activist work within and outside of formal

institutions. In particular, I track the development of the Progressive

Masculinities Mentors group as a grassroots organization for multi-

generational engagement and social change.