Informative Speech On Ella Baker

Maya Bell
Mrs. Jorgenson
US History 8
Sept. 4 2014

Summit (number 1): Ella Baker

Opening statement:

1. My name is Ella Baker. I was born on December 13, 1903. My grandmother was a black slave. She used to tell me stories of being whipped by her owner. In 1927 I graduated from Shaw University as the valedictorian and then went on to become one of the leading activists of the civil rights movement of America. I was involved with the National Association of Advancement for Colored People, the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, Young Negroes' Cooperative League, and I cofounded the Student Nonviolent Coordination Committee. 2. American democracy is a corrupt and un-accepting form of government. Our founding father's declared that all men are equal. What they really meant was that all rich white men are equal. What about the poor, the women, the people of color? In America, the land of the free, we should be treated equally and be given the same rights. Throughout my life I fought for this idea and pursued the educated of the youth on this topic. My nickname, Fundi, was a Swahili word for "a person that passes down their craft to the next generation." ("Ella Josephine Baker." Bio. A&E Television Networks, 2014. Web. 04 Sep. 2014)
3.
With the foundation of the Constitution and Bill of Rights, the US has the potential of being one of, if not the, greatest country on earth, but until people of color have basic rights of being human it will in no way be superior to other countries. In reaction of the 1964 Mississippi murder of 2 white civil rights activists I said "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."

Questions:

To Andrew Jackson: You say that you believe in the "common man", and yet you were one of the causes behind the Indian Removal act of 1830. Why did you not try to stop the act that caused the Trail of Tears?

To Thomas Jefferson: What is your idea of an ideal government?

Questions and Answers from Ella Baker:

Question: Why should black people be able to vote?
Answer: Why should we not be able to vote? Are we too ignorant? It is the system of education for colored youth that is flawed, not our intelligence. Just because we have a different color of skin doesn't mean we are incapable of this task.

Question: What do you hope to achieve is your time as an activist:
Answer: I hope to inspire the next generation of Americans to fight for what they believe in. I believed in freedom and I fought for it. That is what I hope the young people learn from me. (Ella's song 2 to the bottom)

Citations
"Ella Josephine Baker." Bio. A&E Television Networks, 2014. Web. 04 Sep. 2014.

"America's Black Holocaust Museum." Americas Black Holocaust Museum The Education of Black Children in the Jim Crow South Comments. N.p., n.d. Web. 06 Sept. 2014.

"Slain Civil Rights Workers Found." History.com. A&E Television Networks, n.d. Web. 07 Sept. 2014.

"Timeline: A History of the Voting Rights Act." American Civil Liberties Union. N.p., n.d. Web. 07 Sept. 2014.

"Timeline: Civil Rights Era." PBS. PBS, n.d. Web. 07 Sept. 2014.

Schomburg Center For Research In Black Culture. "Ella Baker Papers." Guide to the Ella Baker Papers (n.d.): 1-22. Nypl.org. Web. 7 Sept. 2014.