Home > West's Encyclopedia of American Law > Baker, Ella Josephine

Ella Josephine Baker helped found the U.S. CIVIL RIGHTS MOVEMENT and organize three national CIVIL RIGHTS organizations.

Baker was born in Norfolk, Virginia, on December 13, 1903, the second of three children of Georgianna Ross Baker and Blake Baker. Baker's mother insisted that her children do well in school, because she felt that they needed an education in order to live a full life. Baker was sent to a private boarding school from ninth grade to twelfth grade, after her mother decided that she and her siblings were not receiving high-quality instruction in the public school they had been attending. In 1918, Baker began studying at Shaw University, an all-black school in Raleigh, North Carolina, that offered high school and college-level instruction.

Baker graduated from...