"WE WHO BELIEVE IN FREEDOM CANNOT REST"

 “WE WHO BELIEVE IN FREEDOM CANNOT REST”

Somewhere in the late 1970’s I began experiencing the exceptional singing group “Sweet Honey in the Rock,” founded by Bernice Johnson Reagon.  They introduced me to many people through their singing, including June Jordan, who I’ll write about in Women’s History Month.  This week I want to write about Ella Baker, who is a good bridge from Black History Month to Women’s History Month.  I had vaguely heard of Ella Baker prior to Sweet Honey, but their song “We Who Believe in Freedom Cannot Rest” brought her much more fully into my consciousness.  The song was written by Bernice Johnson Reagon, basing it on a speech that Ella Baker gave in 1964.

Though she has never gotten much credit, Ella Baker was a central part of the civil rights movement in the 1940’s, 1950’s and 1960’s.  She was born in 1903 in Norfolk, Virginia, the place where Caroline and I had our first ministry.  Her grandfather was a Baptist minister, and she felt called to be a minister also.  The Baptists weren’t ordaining women to be ministers then (and many still don’t now), so Baker set her sights on being a missionary in other countries.  There were no public schools for her past elementary school, so she went to Shaw University in Raleigh for high school and college.  She then went to NYC to teach in order to earn money to be a missionary.

Then the Great Depression hit, and there were no jobs for Black teachers.  Her dream of earning money to be a missionary in another country was shattered.  God had other plans for her, though – in NYC, she began to be a missionary in this country.  She joined the NAACP and began organizing buyer co-ops in Black communities.  She supported herself by waitressing and as an office secretary, a true tentmaker minister.  Her efforts were directed at helping Black people see their common needs and goals in a neo-slavery world.  No matter your class or lightness of your skin, white supremacy was coming for you, and Baker emphasized the need to organize to fight this power.  She had a great gift for organizing, for helping others see their common plights and goals.  This work led her to be ready at a critical moment in American history.

After the Montgomery bus boycott and the SCOTUS decision in 1956 which ended segregation on buses, the leaders in Alabama were fatigued and fearful after home bombings and church bombings.  Leaders in New York had seen Baker’s potential, and they asked her to go South to talk with Martin Luther King and other Black ministers to help them galvanize the Montgomery movement into a Southern and even national movement.  At age 53 Baker came down to help develop this movement.  She and King clashed almost immediately, but she convinced him to start the Southern Christian Leadership Conference to export the Montgomery model across the South.  He asked her to direct it for 6 weeks, but she stayed for 2 and ½ years and built it into a mighty force.  When the student sit-ins came in 1960, Baker was sent to help to organize them and to bring them under the SCLC or NAACP fold.  She surprised everyone, however, at the Raleigh Conference when she urged the students to form their own organization.  They did, forming the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), with John Lewis, Diane Nash, and Julian Bond among its leaders.  They asked Ella Baker to become its first coordinator, which she did at age 57 for these young students.  She supported herself by working at the Atlanta YWCA.

From there, she and Bob Moses organized the work that would refocus the efforts:  Mississippi Freedom Summer of 1964.  Out of this came the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party, whose leadership included Fannie Lou Hamer and Aaron Henry – the primary organizer for them was Ella Baker.   As the group prepared for the Democratic Convention in Atlantic City in 1964 to challenge the all-white Democratic delegates there, the keynote address was given by Ella Baker.  

She did so much more, continuing her work for civil rights and women’s rights, but I have run out of room.  At a gathering celebrating Ella Baker’s seventy-fifth birthday, Bob Moses called her the “Fundi,” the person in the community who masters a craft with the help of the community and teaches it to other people.

She died in 1986, and I want to close with some of the words to the Sweet Honey in the Rock song, based on her life and work.  Go find the song and more information about this remarkable woman.

We who believe in freedom cannot rest

We who believe in freedom cannot rest until it comes, 

Until the killing of Black men, Black mothers’ sons, 

Is as important as the killing of White men, white mothers’ sons

That which touches me most is that I had a 

Chance to work with people,

Passing on to others, that which was passed on to me

To me young people come first,

They have the courage where we fail,

And if I can but shed some light, 

As they carry us through the gate

The older I get, the better I know 

That the secret of my going on

Is when the reins are in the hands of the young,

Who dare to run against the storm