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

by Barbara Ransby

As Howard Zinn's report on Baker's speech attests, she offered her listeners “a vision beyond the immediate.” She advised those gathered that evening that, even as they prepared to face hostile crowds and potentially violent police in defense of their right to vote and to use public facilities like any other citizen, these goals alone were not enough. She challenged her listeners to consider the importance of economic and systemic changes, insisting that “even if segregation is gone, we will still need to be free; we will still have to see that everyone has a job. Even if we can all vote, but if people are still hungry, we will not be free … Singing alone is not enough; we need schools and learning … Remember, we are not fighting for the freedom of the Negro alone, but for the freedom of the human spirit, a larger freedom that encompasses all of mankind.”