Wake Wednesday - Ella Josephine Baker - the Mother of Civil Rights

Ella Josephine Baker, founder of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee was an alumna and former valedictorian (1927) of  Shaw University.  Baker is regarded as the mother of the civil rights movement. In addition to the SNCC, she co founded the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) with Martin Luther King,Jr. After college she moved to Harlem in New York. At that time Harlem was the hub of the black intellectual and creative thinking phenomenon known as the Harlem Renaissance.

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A poll conducted by North Carolina Public Radio voted her the favorite to have deserve a monument in North Carolina. Michael Hill of the N.C. Department of Cultural Resources recommends honoring Ella Josephine Baker in a statue on the grounds of Shaw University in Raleigh.

To learn more about the "unsung hero" Ella Josephine Baker, watch the video, Ella Josephine Baker - African American Trailblazers

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