Baker, Ella Josephine (1903–1986)

US civil-rights activist. From the late 1920s onwards, Baker was involved with a number of groups working for racial equality, including the Workers Education Project of the Works Progress Administration. In the 1960s she was instrumental in the foundation of the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee, and was also active in the establishment of the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party in 1964. Baker has been widely credited with inspiring many of the founders of the Students for a Democratic Society and the Black Panther Party.