I guess the best way to describe that would be to connect with the fact that I came out of college just before the big Depression, and I came to New York.
Ella BakerOne of the things that has to be faced is the process of waiting to change the system, how much we have got to do to find out who we are, where we have come from and where we are going.
Ella BakerI began to feel that my greatest sense of success would raise the level of masses of people, rather than the individual being accepted by the Establishment. So, this kind of personal thinking, combined with, say, even the little bit more radical thinking - because at one time the pacifist movement was a very radical concept.
Ella BakerIn order to see where we are going, we not only must remember where we have been, but we must understand where we have been.
Ella BakerFrom the Cooperative League, I suppose, with the Depression lingering as long as it did, the next step in terms of, as you call it, professional relationship, was to go to the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People [NAACP]. I went there as an assistant field secretary, and so forth. So, I suppose that was the first organized step.
Ella Baker