One of the nation’s most influential women in the American civil rights movement, Ella Josephine Baker was born on December 13, 1903 in Norfolk, Virginia and died on her birthday, December 13, 1986 in New York City, New York at age 83. Just name a major personality in the height of the civil rights movement and you may find a connection to Ella Baker. She worked with Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, the NAACP, SNCC and many other individuals and organizations in fighting discrimination and promoting equal rights during the turbulent decades of blatant racial injustice in the twentieth century.
Mural on the wall of row houses in Philadelphia featuring Malcolm X – Ella Baker – Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. – Frederick Douglass