dc ♥ ella baker

Ella Baker has been eponymously honored in DC by at least one organization and multiple times through the deeds and actions of the SNCC members who lived and organized in the city, and were inspired by her intellect, her organizing skills, her ethics and her long commitment to social justice.

I have found one reference to Ella Baker visiting DC in 1968. On 12 May, she spoke at the Ebenezer Methodist Church at 4th & D Sts SE to a crowd of visitors who traveled to DC to build Resurrection City, a key part of the Poor People's Campaign.

She told the audience:

"This is just the beginning, the first step in a long walk. I have sat through hundreds of meetings like this. I have heard the calls and I have sensed the enthusiasm such as you show here. You need more than enthusiasm. You need knowledge to find out what it takes to get action. The only way to beat this rap (poverty) is for people (of all races) to work together for themselves.  We need to spend a little less time feeling good and more time digging deep for answers."

(Source: "Young Builders Get Sobering Advice," by Ernest Holsendolph, Evening Star, 13 May 1968, p. 5.)

I'm hoping to find a photograph of her from that event and to find people who heard her speak that night.

In 2003, the Ella Jo Baker Intentional Community Cooperative was formed.  

"The Ella Jo Baker Intentional Community Cooperative is a limited equity housing cooperative in Columbia Heights, DC, guided by the Kwanzaa principle Ujamaa meaning cooperative economics.  Our mission is to build a solid foundation of cooperation and community participation that will serve as a model for community building, neighborhood improvement and the effectuation of the Kwanzaa Principles. We get our inspiration from Ella Josephine Baker, known affectionately as Miss Ella, a tireless human rights fighter who committed her life to the building of cooperation and participatory democracy coming from the bottom upward, for the purpose of bringing about social justice.

Our vision, like Miss Ella’s, is for a strong community in which neighbors are interdependent upon each other, share resources and support and collectively make decisions for the betterment of their neighborhood."

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