Ella Baker Tour & Retreat

Purpose of Ella Baker Tour & Retreat
To commemorate and reinvigorate the influence of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) by enlisting students and young activists to organize events for a multicultural, intergenerational dialogue.

Motivation and Inspiration
Social change movements led by people of African descent in the U.S. are experiencing a loss of continuity and collaboration between young and elder activists. Cross-generational conversations are spiced with blame for the conditions we face today. Particularly, the number of black people in prison, conditions in public schools and disparities in access to health care beg the question about gains from Brown vs. Board of Education, affirmative action and the end to legal segregation. At the 75th Anniversary of Highlander Research and Education Center, a gathering of SNCC veterans and young activists embraced the idea of the Ella Baker-SNCC Tour and Retreat.


About the Tour
Young activists between the ages of 16 and 35 will speak on their organizing projects and their aims to participate in movements for social change.

Students at East Tennessee State University and North Carolina State University organized events for February 18 and February 27, respectively. Other events in the South are planned for Nashville, TN and Charlotte, NC in March. Students at Rutgers are planning events for April.  Events will feature music and songs from the civil rights era and original creations by young activists and poets. Young spoken-word artists in the Raleigh-Durham area will participate with original works teaching about Ella Baker and the civil rights movement. Audience participants will sing "Ella’s Song" and "We Shall Overcome" at each event.

              Ella Baker Tour, East Tennessee State University, February 18, 2008.

About the Retreat
The May 20-27, 2008 retreat brought together youth and veteran organizers of the tour for a series of intergenerational sessions at a beach location in North Carolina. Invitations to attend the retreat were extended to other civil rights veterans, cultural organizers and young activists. Co-mentoring was encouraged as an acknowledgment that social justice activists of any age, gender, race and class have something to contribute. It was a time to write, read and rejuvenate.

A special effort was made to provide space for low-income youth and low-income civil rights vets.

Photos from the retreat can be found here.

Who was Ella Baker?
Ella Baker (1903-1986) was an NAACP organizer who is credited with mentoring students who formed the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) in 1960.