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

by Barbara Ransby

At the same time that Baker worried about the threat of white vigilante violence, the federal government worried about the alleged “danger” that she represented. Throughout the World War II period and the Cold War years that followed, Baker was under constant surveillance by the Federal Bureau of Investigation and by Military Intelligence. They monitored her moves, speculated about her motives, and compiled reams of reconnaissance data on her public activity and her private life. FBI informants called Baker on the phone to obtain information about her whereabouts, feigned interest in her politics to get a closer view of her day-to-day activities, and pumped her friends and associates to amass a profile of a woman they deemed potentially subversive.87 Most of the FBI agents who spied on Baker from the 1940s through the 1970s did not know what to make of this middle-aged hell-raiser who defied categorization. She led an unconventional life, made enormous sacrifices for the causes and campaigns to which she devoted herself, and asked for very little material reward or recognition in return. She maintained an eclectic circle of friends of various ages, races, and political affiliations, yet she herself never belonged to any one organization for very long. Reading between the lines of the FBI'S individual reports on Baker's activities, one can almost hear the agents' queries, pregnant with all the biased stereotypes the agency held about dissidents: What is she up to? Who does ...