1. Laying the Groundwork for Freedom:
Septima Clark and Ella Baker
Jeff Kolnick
TAH/JPS
Hamer Institute
June 2012
2. Assessment Questions
How did Clark and Baker contribute to the idea of
participatory democracy?
In what ways were Clark’s and Baker’s
leadership feminist and how might this help
explain their absence from popular discussions of
civil rights leadership?
3. Septima Clark and Ella
Baker
December 13, 1903 –
May 3, 1898–December 15, 1987 December 13, 1986
4. Working to educate and organize and
not for the spotlight
“You didn’t see me You always have to get the
on television, you people with you. You can’t
force them into
didn’t see news things….When I went into
stories about me. Mississippi and Alabama I
The kind of role that stayed behind the scene and
I tried to play was to tried to get the people in
pick up pieces or put town to push forward, and
together pieces out then I would come forth with
of which I hoped ideas. But I wouldn’t do it at
organization might first because I knew it was
detrimental….The people in
come. My theory is, the masses, though, do
strong people don’t better than teachers. They
need strong come out. They’re willing to
leaders.” fight anyhow.
Ella Baker Septima Clark
5. Building a Grassroots Network of
Leaders
Mrs. Clark and Mrs. Baker represent a tradition of grassroots
leadership that in many respects explains the success and
significance of the Civil Rights movement.
By 1965, movement activity had spread into all regions of the
south. In hundreds of local communities, rural and urban, deep
south and upper south, local leaders had emerged who were not
afraid and where empowered with new confidence and tools.
In their own ways, these women were catalysts in developing a
strong network of leaders among the masses of black folk
throughout the south and they did this over the course of many
years.
Their leadership was characteristic of women’s leadership: what
Joanne Grant called a “group-centered leadership rather than a
leadership-centered group.’ Or what Barbara Ransby called “a
radical democratic vision” that without being explicitly feminist,
was unable to accommodate any form of discrimination that
limited participation in the movement for any reason other than a
6. Characteristics of Women’s
Leadership
Non-Hierarchical and egalitarian
Network Centered
Institution Builders and
transformers
Religiously and culturally based
A focus on adult education,
empowerment, and leadership
development
Working at the intersections of
7. Political
Socialization
Direct links to slavery , Clark’s father and Baker’s
grandparents:
Clark learned to work with everyone and Baker to
challenge authority
Mothers: Clark to never back down and Baker to
always care for the community
Fathers: Clark to maintain a sense of who you are
and Baker a pride in heritage and to have some fun in
life
Both came from families that deeply valued education
and were connected to their communities on many
levels
Both lived within a community that was close and
connected
Both had “unconventional marriages” and a lot of
8. Education to Serve
Septima Clark Ella Baker
High School Graduate , Grammar school
Charleston, SC, 1916
graduate and an extra
1942 BA, Columbia
University year to prepare for
1945, MA Hampton college
Institute 1918-1927 Shaw
Worked with DuBois at
Atlanta University Academy and Shaw
1954, Highlander University,
workshops Valedictorian of both
Elected to Charleston high school and
School Board in 1976 college
and served two terms
9. “Postgraduate training:”
Clark and Equalization
Pay inequity
Work Load
Access to Charleston schools
as teachers and principals
Joined NAACP in 1919 in
Charleston and achieved goals
in 1920 after door to door
campaign and gaining 10,000
signatures for a petition
Started adult education/literacy
in 1935 for WWI Veterans
Dismissed in 1955 for refusing
to renounce her membership in
the NAACP
Worked with State NAACP and
Thurgood Marshall starting in
1935 for pay equity. In 1976 she
is awarded back pay and
pension benefits.
10. “Postgraduate training:”
Ella Baker, the 30s, and NYC
137th Street YWCA and
important friendships:
Dorothy Height and Pauli
Murray
NAACP
Harlem Branch Library
Socialists, Communists,
Organized Labor, UNIA
The Young Negroes’
Cooperative League
Worker’s Education
Project (WPA): 1,000
teachers helping workers
gain “a more intelligent
understanding of the
social and political
economy of which he is a
part.”
11. Mrs. Clark and the Power of
Literacy
Mrs. Clark and the NAACP
On to Highlander, 1956
First Citizenship School on John’s Island, 1957
“All over the Deep South”: Citizenship School Program
transferred to SCLC in 1961 and called the Voter Education
Project 1962
There were 897 Citizenship schools from 1957-1970
There were 195 going on in 1964 alone
Some 10,000 teachers were trained
Mrs. Clark traveled 11 Southern states conducting and
supervising schools
Impact
Empowering thousands of local leaders with new tools
Overcoming fear
Networking with leaders throughout the south and ending
isolation
Empowering hundreds of thousands with literacy and the vote
12. Frederick Douglass on Literacy
I was now about twelve years old, and the thought of being a
slave for life began to bear heavily upon my heart. Just about
this time, I got hold of a book entitled "The Columbian Orator."
Every opportunity I got, I used to read this book. In the same
book, I met with one of Sheridan's mighty speeches on and in
behalf of Catholic emancipation. These were choice documents
to me. I read them over and over again with unabated interest.
They gave tongue to interesting thoughts of my own soul, which
had frequently flashed through my mind, and died away for want
of utterance. The reading of these documents enabled me to
utter my thoughts, and to meet the arguments brought forward to
sustain slavery; but while they relieved me of one difficulty, they
brought on another even more painful than the one of which I
was relieved. The more I read, the more I was led to abhor and
detest my enslavers. I could regard them in no other light than a
band of successful robbers, who had left their homes, and gone
to Africa, and stolen us from our homes, and in a strange land
reduced us to slavery. I loathed them as being the meanest as
well as the most wicked of men.
13. Building the Network: Mrs. Baker and
the Power of Organizing
Field Secretary for the NAACP, 1940-43
Director of Branches, 1943-46
President of the NYC NAACP
Founder of In Frienship, 1956
First Executive Director of SCLC, 1957
Staff member for SCEF Staff, 1963
Adult Advisor of SNCC, 1960
MFDP Washington office, 1964
Impact
Extensive network
Leadership development
Overcoming fear
Coalition and institution building
15. Discussion
What are the unique causes that can explain the
relative obscurity of A Philip Randolph, Pauli
Murray, Septima Clark, and Ella Baker?
What are the common causes that can explain
the relative obscurity of A Philip Randolph, Pauli
Murray, Septima Clark, and Ella Baker?
16. Resources
http://blackhistory.50webs.com/septimaclark.html
Katherine Mellen Charron's Freedom’s Teacher:
The Life of Septima Clark
Septima Clark and Cynthia Stokes Brown, Ready
from Within
Vicki Crawfrod et all, Women in the Civil Rights
Movement
Joanne Grant, Ella Baker: Freedom Bound
Barbara Ransby, Ella Baker and the Black
Freedom Movement