Food Rebel Ella Baker
Civil rights activist Ella Baker (standing third from right) with a group of young and teenage girls at a fair sponsored by the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, circa 1950s. Courtesy of The New York Public Library
After the end of the Young Negroes Cooperative (YNCL) in 1932, Activist Ella Baker continued to champion its revolutionary call for black consumer run cooperatives and economic advancement. Despite the failure of the YNCL, Baker held on to the value of black economic cooperation and business networks. Apparently, the work and message of the YNCL made inroads into African-American communities nationally. Across the country black folk organized food co-ops during the Great Depression. Similarly, black grocery store owners organized a network called the Colored Merchant Association, which purchased advertising and food products collectively improving the businesses of its members. Baker would go on play an important role in the civil rights movement as one of the organizers and intellectual architects of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC).
