Ella Baker and the Black Freedom Movement: A Radical Democratic Vision (Gender and American Culture)

by Barbara Ransby

Baker saw the necessity of forming alliances across racial lines and national boundaries on pragmatic political grounds. In response to remarks made by a Philadelphia minister urging blacks to pull themselves up by their bootstraps, that is, without allies, she argued in an unpublished essay written around 1940: I could but think “how true and yet how false.” True that a new economic order must be built, but false to hope that it can be built by the Negro alone on any policy of racial isolation. True that the Negro's future will be determined by his own efforts, but false to expect … that it can be achieved by … racial isolation. While we are tugging at our own bootstraps, we must realize that our interests are more often than not identical to that of others. We must recognize the identity of interests, work with other groups … [and yet not sacrifice our interests to that of the larger cause]. A difficult but unavoidable task.158