Until the killing of black men, black mothers’ sons / Is as important as the killing of white men, white mothers’ sons … / We who believe in freedom cannot rest until it comes!
—Bernice Johnson Reagon, “Ella’s Song”
Religious historian Dr. Nichole Flores shares the Christian witness of civil rights organizer and strategist Ella Baker, a powerful mentor and champion for young people’s voices and leadership.
This is “Ella’s Song,” inspired by the words and witness of Miss Ella Josephine Baker (1903–1986), a magisterial authority of the civil rights movement and a witness to true human freedom…. “Ella’s Song” announces the existence of those who are often made invisible in our society: black people, poor people, young people, and women…. [It] shines a light on Baker’s belief in freedom and justice, but it also changes the condition of those who sing this song. It changes their hearts. It changes their actions. It becomes their creed….
Her creed is at once deeply democratic and profoundly Christian, leading her to insist that special concern for “the least of these” (Matthew 25) and “lifting up the lowly” (Luke 1) are spiritual priorities as well as social and political ones.
Baker’s most significant work … was with young people. While Baker was a serious young person with an innate maturity—her grandfather called her “Grand Lady” because she was a great conversationalist even as a child—she had a natural sympathy for young people and their causes. As an undergraduate student at Shaw University, Baker led protests for the right of female and male students to walk across campus together and for women to be able to wear silk stockings. She took on these causes … because she saw them as important expression of young people learning to secure and defend their liberty and autonomy…. [Decades later,] she believed that the students [in the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee] needed space to develop their own voices, their own relationships, and their own agenda….
While Baker supported the students in their efforts, she insisted that the movement was about larger issues than lunch counters; it was about “something much bigger than a hamburger or even a giant-sized Coke.” [1] True freedom required learning to treat others with dignity and equality … [and] teaching others to love freedom and to do the work required to sustain it. Baker considered human equality to be a divine calling, a state that was good for its own sake. And she offered the students another perspective on their organizing without dousing the flames of the passionate pursuit of their own most important issues and campaigns….
Baker also shows the way forward for those who want to eradicate racism from American society. She shows us that sharing our bounty with our neighbors builds a strong community. She teaches us to love good ideas even when they are new or unfamiliar. She demonstrates that loving our neighbors requires that we listen to their stories. She reveals that humility and self-critique are the friends of courage and power.
References:
[1] Ella J. Baker, “Bigger Than a Hamburger,” Southern Patriot, [May] 1960, in Let Nobody Turn Us Around: Voices of Resistance, Reform, and Renewal, ed. Manning Marble, Leith Mullings (Rowman and Littlefield, 2000), 399.
Nichole M. Flores, “We Who Believe in Freedom: Ella Baker’s Creed,” in Can I Get a Witness? Thirteen Peacemakers, Community Builders, and Agitators for Faith and Justice, ed. Charles Marsh, Shea Tuttle, Daniel P. Rhodes (Eerdmans, 2019), 119, 120, 128–131, 134.
Image Credit and inspiration: Gerson Pancorbo, Untitled (detail), 2021, photo, Unsplash. Click here to enlarge image. Musicians can be inspired by what they witness and then compose music that heals and creates change.
Story from Our Community:
I am very grateful for the CAC’s Daily Meditations, especially that the “Story from Our Community” section is included with each meditation. It’s been truly helpful to read what other people have to say. Sometimes a vulnerable sharing has resonated so strongly within me it has felt like the quiet whisper from God has come through the short sharing from the community, instead of through the “earth-quaking” insights of the Daily Meditation itself. Part of the CAC “being salt and light” is achieved by finding ways for more lights to shine forth into the world. Thank you!
—Jason O.
