Ella Baker - (Library of African American Biography) by J Todd Moye (Paperback)

About the Book

Ella Josephine Baker was among the most influential strategists of the most important social movement in modern US history, the civil rights movement. In this book, historian J. Todd Moye masterfully reconstructs Baker's life and contribution for a new generation of readers.

Book Synopsis

Ella Josephine Baker was among the most influential strategists of the most important social movement in modern US history, the civil rights movement. In this book, historian J. Todd Moye masterfully reconstructs Baker's life and contribution for a new generation of readers.

Review Quotes

In this beautifully written, perceptive, and engaging biography, J. Todd Moye introduces a new generation of Americans to Ella Baker, whose ideas and example inspired black and white activists during the Civil Rights years. Her conviction that social movements should be based on grass-roots involvement and group-centered leadership is as relevant today as it was a half century ago.


Todd Moye's lively, engaging narrative balances vivid storytelling with thoughtful analysis for a compelling introduction to Ella Baker, arguably the most important leader-organizer-strategist of the 20th Century Black Freedom Struggle. Thanks to Moye's marvelous biography, many more people will know Baker and have a sense, not only of how essential she was to movements for racial justice and human rights, but how much we still have to learn from her.

About the Author

J. Todd Moye is associate professor of history at the University of North Texas and the author of Freedom Flyers: The Tuskegee Airmen in World War II (Oxford 2010) and Let the People Decide: Black Freedom and White Resistance Movements in Sunflower County, Mississippi, 1945-1986 (University of North Carolina Press 2004).