Empowering Communities: Ella Baker’s Decentralized Leadership Style and Conversational Eloquence

Abstract

ABSTRACTThis article examines Ella Baker’s distinctive contributions to what she called the fight for full freedom. In particular, this article analyzes Baker’s 1969 speech, “The Black Woman in the Civil Rights Struggle.” This article contends that Baker’s rhetorical efforts allowed her to revitalize and rethink the Civil Rights Movement by positioning her audience as its leaders. By empowering her audience to be leaders and to take a personal stake in the fight for freedom, Baker promoted the continuation of the Civil Rights Movement by emphasizing the importance of individual action and the commitment to a larger communal struggle. This article enriches scholarship about the Civil Rights Movement, by highlighting how Civil Rights Movement rhetors used a wide array of appeals.