Ella Baker and Participatory Democracy: An Exploration and Interpretations

: Social movement has been closely related to American civil rights movement. However, participatory democracy has also been related to American civil rights movement as a part of the greater social movement in the twentieth century. Ella Baker, a veteran American civil rights leader has championed participatory democracy. She was not a political scientist but as an activist and thinker, she gave birth to the idea of participatory democracy as part of her struggle for the America civil rights movement. Ell Baker’s socialistic up-bringing and social ecology influenced her in articulating the idea of participatory democracy. To Ella Baker, participatory democracy was a non-hierarchical, bottom-up, non-macho-centric and more-women-centric movement involving mass people. It is not leader-driven; rather, leaders rise up from among the mass people as part of the culture of the participatory democracy. Ella Baker, Participatory democracy figured more prominently than Dr. Martin Luther King Jr’s idea of non-violence because it is not being driven by charismatic leadership but being participatory involving mass people at its core. Methodologically speaking, it is qualitative study emphasizing upon interpretivist philosophy and methodology. In other words, automatically it underpins a critique of positivism which emphasis upon subject-object differences. However, it is characterized by both time constraints and source limitations. A short conclusion has been drawn, focusing on the whole research.


Introduction
In 20th century American history, the Civil Rights Movement ( Branch, 1988) i has been a seminal social movement that has caught the imagination of generations of people, political leaders and scholars primarily for its idea of non-violent social changes primarily articulated and championed by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.   (Chernus, 2004) ii No doubt, the idea of non-violent social change has been an integral part of the Civil Rights Movement.However, it can plausibly be argued that an equally important idea that shaped as well as made the Civil Rights Movement successful at the grass roots level has been the concept of Participatory Democracy primarily championed by Ella Baker , a stalwart of the movement.Put it differently, the idea of non-violence has overshadowed this innovative concept of activist Participatory Democracy.Nevertheless, historic importance of this concept is no less important than that of the idea of non-violent social change because the basic idea as well as practice of Participatory Democracy not only impressed upon the activists but also prepared them for fighting for their own rights at the grass roots level.Scholarships have dealt with Ella Baker's concept of Participatory Democracy but none has dealt with it systematically.Ella Baker's idea of Participatory Democracy is also more pronounced and profound because whereas the Civil Rights Movement had traditionally been dominated by typical macho-centric and hierarchical male leadership from men above, Ella Baker, among others, sought to resent if not oppose the traditional male domination and sought to conceive and advance the idea of participatory democracy from a gender perspective because in a man dominated world, she sought to see organization, leadership and power more from the standpoint of women who are more prone to act in a concert and not in an hierarchical manner, who see leadership as a shared activity and who seek to see power more as persuasion than domination (Rourke, 2007)iii Objectives This paper will seek to delve into Ella Baker's concept of Participatory Democracy.However, as students of history we need to ask at this initial stage a few questions about Ella Baker's concept of Participatory Democracy if we wish to get the pertinent answers (Collingwood, 1994)iv accordingly, we shall raise a few research questions to get relevant answers about Ella Baker's concept of Participatory Democracy: what was Ella Baker's concept of Participatory Democracy?How did she come to conceive the idea of Participatory Democracy?How did she express the idea of Participatory Democracy in her long career as a political activist?

Literature Review
A few researches that have been carried out on Ella Baker's concept of Participatory Democracy are fine (Muller, 1990)v However, our attempt here is to explore her idea of Participatory Democracy more systematically and make a critical interpretation of her idea of Participatory Democracy by using both textual and contextual analysis (Ransby, 2003)vi What we mean here is that we have got some texts on Ella Baker's concept of Participatory Democracy.However, what we need is to explore these texts as well as to interpret them in multiple contexts in which she conceived those ideas and sought to express them in her long career associated with the Civil Rights Movement before and afterward.

Limitations
Ella Baker was not a systematic thinker, let alone a political scientist.However, she was a first rate political leader.Hence, we have to delve into her ideas of Participatory Democracy within the given limitations.Moreover, most of her speeches that she gave as part of her political activism centering on the idea of Participatory Democracy have not been recorded.I am afraid because this is going to be a major limitation of this study.Another major limitation that I have encountered is the time constraints.Last but not the least, the two research institutes, the Martin Luther King Jr., Center for Non-Violent Social Change and The Auburn Research Center where I went to collect primary sources on Ella Baker's long political activism have not been as helpful as I assumed them to be at the beginning.All these have told upon the quality of research that I sought to pursue while conceiving the idea of this project at the beginning.

Research Methodology
This study will use interpretive methodology as opposed to hypothesis based positivist methodology.
Apparently, an interpretative study appears to be a qualitative study but an in-depth analysis will show that it far different from qualitative study.An interpretive research as a research paradigm is based on the assumption that social reality is not singular or objective, but it is rather embedded in and shaped by human experiences and social contexts.It is, therefore, best studied within its socio-historic context by reconciling the subjective interpretations of its various participants.Because interpretive researchers view social reality as being embedded within and impossible to abstract from their multifaceted social contexts, they "interpret" the reality though a "sense-making" process rather than a hypothesis testing process.In this backdrop, this study will seek to explore and analyze the social contexts, i. e, social ecology and the mindset that propelled Ella Baker to articulate the idea of participatory democracy.It is a critique of positivist philosophy as well as methodology in that it is interpretevist in nature.

Discussions and Interpretations
Individuals are mostly the products of both heredity and ecology, natural and social.Ella Bake was no exception.Her idea of participatory democracy are thought to be the product of the familial, religious and social milieu in which she was born and brought up.Ruminating her childhood, she claimed that she was a child of socialism in which everything-from food to responsibility was shared.She said: Where we have lived there was no sense of social hierarchy in terms of those who have, having rights to look down upon, or to evaluate as a lesser breed, those who did not have.Part of that could have resulted… from the proximity of my maternal grandparents to slavery.They had known what it was to not have.Plus {we had] the "Christian concept of sharing with others (Payne, 2007)vii Ella had participated with her mother in hundreds of church-related religious meetings organized by women at local levels.In those meetings, Ella observed not simply the ritualistic expressions of faith, but the actual business of applying religious principles, particularly the principles of Christian charity and service, in the real world.Moreover, Ella witnessed this important work being organized and carried out by confident, competent, and committed African American women.These women ran their own meetings, managed their own funds, and maintained a certain margin of autonomy within the church.Their collective example of strength and activism had distinct effect on Ella's revolving consciousness and self-image (Muller, 1990)viii In fact, these early experiences instilled in her values and ideas that given opportunities, not only African women but also people of any race as well as locality can be involved in local activism and do things in their own way.In this sense, she believed that every individual regardless of race or sex or creed has the potential to play a role in the greater society.Participatory democracy has mostly been associated with social movements of various types.However, Carol Mueller has developed three major planks of participatory democracy.These are: (1)an appeal for grass roots involvement of people throughout society in the decisions that control their lives; (2) the minimization of hierarchy and the associated emphasis on expertise and professionalism as a basis for leadership; (3) a call for direct action as an answer to fear, alienation and intellectual detachment (Muller, 1990)ix These are separate categories but there is no doubt that there is no watertight division between these three planks; rather, these are overlapping with each other.As part of grass roots involvement, Ella Baker sought to empower people at local level to solve their problems or take decisions that influence their lives.She said: My basic sense of it has always been to get people to understand that in the long run they themselves are the only protection they have against violence or injustice.If they only had ten members in the NAACP at a given point, those ten members could be in touch with twenty-five members in the next little town, with fifty in the next and throughout the state as result of the organization of state conferences, and they, of course, could be lined up with the national.People have to be made to understand that they cannot look for salvation anywhere but to themselves (Muller, 1990)x The essence of this observation by Ella Baker is that it is people who have to look for the solution of their own problems themselves.Thus she wanted people to have a say in their own affairs and control their destiny themselves instead of looking at others or elsewhere.Empowerment of people which has been so common a fad in our days as a concept of civil society had been envisioned by Ella Baker as part of her concept of participatory democracy in the context of a wide array of activities in various organizations with which she had been associated in one capacity or another in her long life as an activist.From this standpoint, she had been highly critical of the NAACP's failure to emphasize the development of self-sufficient local communities…" (Muller, 1990)xi She sought to put her words into actions and organized a series of regional leadership conferences with a view to helping local leaders to develop their own leadership potential (Payne, 2007)xii When the NAACP sought to deal with local problems in its legalistic way and local leadership saw no role in fighting local injustice, Ella Baker brought a paradigm shift and steered the conversation to local matters and activated local organizations.She helped them to map out a strategy for dealing with local issues.If any local organization was found to be lacking in taking initiative, she scolded them as "too lazy to concern itself with things on its doorstep."(Payne, 2007)xiii Ella Baker's participatory democracy also works not only outside the domain of government and business but also outside the domain of any established organization characterized by any hierarchy and bureaucracy.As part of participatory democracy, she had developed a very different type of the concept of leadership and organization.She believed that a movement should not be built around a charismatic leader or a few leaders.Following this line of reasoning, she argued that people's movement must encourage or build up local leadership at the grass-root level from among the masses.In other words, leadership must rise, she thought, from among the people and thus should not be imposed from above.Defending this concept of leadership as well as organization based on her innovative concept of participatory democracy, Ella Baker said: Instead of "the leader" -a person who was supposed to be a magic man-you should develop individuals who were bound together by a concept that benefited a large number of individuals and provided an opportunity for them into being responsible for carrying the program (Morris, 1984)xiv She sought to give equal opportunity to almost everybody to develop himself or herself as a potential leader for the greater interests of the group."Here is an opportunity for adult and youth to work together and provide genuine leadership-the development of the individual to his highest potential for the benefit of the group" observed Ella Baker in her North Carolina speech (White, 1990)xv Baker's criticism of charismatic leadership is insightful because she felt that the civil rights movement had been unduly built up around the personality of Dr. King, preventing the rise of any alternative leadership from young, women and other sections of the society at the grass-root level.This stance of leadership from the standpoint of participatory democracy prompted her to advocate for group-centered leadership (it will be discussed later).From this standpoint, Ella baker had been critical of the charismatic leaders like Dr. Martin Luther King.Her criticism of Dr. King had been rightly articulated by Dr. Ransby who said, "Baker described him (King) as pampered member of Atlanta's black elite who had the mantle of leadership handed to him rather than having had to earn it, a member of the coddled 'silver spoon brigade."(Ransby,p.190)xviAccording to Ella Baker, Dr. King did not closely associate himself with the people; rather, Dr. King sought to work among people.Interestingly, Ella Baker had to a certain extent identity of minds with both Septima Clark and Myles Horton both about the notion of democracy and local leadership because… "all of them had an expansive sense of the possibilities of democracy.." observes Charles Payne (Payne, p.68)xvii From this standpoint, Ella Baker and her two colleagues differed with the conventional understanding that the poor people had to be led by their social better (Ibid)xviii However, Ella Baker had much deeper anathema for strong leader as part of her more expansive of participatory democracy.And she made it no uncertain terms when she said: You didn't see me on television; you didn't see news stories about me.The kind up of people that I tried to pick up pieces or put together pieces out of which I hoped organization might come.My theory is, strong people do not need strong leaders (Muller, p.51)xix Ella Baker went ahead of the traditional leadership of the NAACP, SCLC and other organizations like the MFDP on the overall agenda of civil rights but she always remained skeptical of the traditional leaders who put their personal interests ahead of at the cost of the interests of the general folk.Speaking at the state Convention of the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party held on August 6 1964, she warned the delegates of the risk of the selfish interests of the leaders and said, "We must be careful lest we elect to represent us people who, for the first time, feel their sense of importance and will represent themselves before they represent you."(Dittemer, 1994)xx Ell Baker's point was that general members of the organizations should keep a vigilant watch of the selfish motives of leaders.From the standpoint of participatory democracy, her warning is important because in democracy, elections are held periodically and people cast their votes and choose leaders.Once leaders are elected, people turn to their own affairs and become indolent.This is a major problem in a modern democracy.However, Ella Baker sought to instill an activist stance among people and tell them to remain vigilant of traditional leadership all the times (Ibid)xxi Ella baker's concept of participatory democracy meant not only activism and autonomy of local organizations but also their separate organizational structure, identity and sometimes agenda.With this end in view, she helped create the SNCC in Shaw University in Raleigh North Carolina in April 1960.In fact, the SNCC was created for separate activism as well as autonomy of students who stood apart from the SCLC which was hierarchical and bureaucratic in Baker's eyes.Nevertheless, King wanted to mould the SNCC in the image of the SCLC following the emergence of the SNCC.However, " Ella Baker, aware of the growing dissatisfaction among the student generation with the civil rights leadership, urged the SNCC to maintain a separate identity" (White, p.125)xxii.In fact, Ella Baker had been "more immediately successful in her attempt to keep one of the established civil rights groups from absorbing the new student movement."(Payne, p.98)xxiii Diane Nash, a Fish University student recalls that it was Ella Baker who "was very important in giving direction to the student movement … in terms of seeing how important it was that the students should set the goals and directions and maintain control of the student movement."(White, p.125)xxivWhen students were busy organizing sit in at lunch counters, she sought to change both the spatial focus of the movement and its goals and thus infuse new activism among them in every arena of life.In fact, she said: that the current sit-in and other demonstrations are concerned with something bigger than hamburger.The Negro and White students, North and South, are seeking to rid America of the scourge of racial segregation and discrimination-not only at lunch counters but in every aspect of life.xxvInterestingly, student leaders were more excited and fascinated with the leadership of Ella Baker than with any other civil rights leader including Dr. King because she made the students feel an integral part of the movement as part of her commitment to participatory democracy.Students were also most interested in running their own movement themselves because they had developed stake in the organization that they created (Payne, p.99) xxvi One can argue that here both students and Ella Baker had identity of mind as well as interests.However, what is more noteworthy about her commitment to as well as conviction of participatory democracy is that though she discovered that black students from black universities in the North were better educated and more articulate in terms of social and political philosophies, she still kept the leadership of the movement in the hands of the students from the South because as victims of injustice, they had, she felt, more stake as well as more commitment to the movement.Dr. Charles Payne has rightly said, "They were the ones who suffered from the problem and it was important to her that they be allowed to determine the shape and substance of the response to it.The Southern character of the movement had to be preserved."(Ibid,p.98)xxvii Since Ella Baker had been against both hierarchization and bureaucracy, she had been very critical of the organizational culture of the civil rights organization like the SCLC and the NAACP.Interestingly, this very stance against hierarchy had again been rooted in her upbringing in North Carolina as seen before.Her antipathy to hierarchical leadership coupled with her concept grass roots mobilization led her to promote what she called "group-centered" leadership."From this standpoint, she opposed charismatic leader who is elevated to a position towering above everyone else.Instead, she wanted the leader to be a facilitator who discovers potential among others and work them instead of others following his/her command.From this standpoint, she had been critical of Walter White of the NAACP.Commenting on his leadership, she said, "Unfortunately, he also felt the need to impress the government people.He had not learnt, as many people still have not learned, that if you are involved with people and organizing them as a force, you didn't have to go and seek out the establishment people.They would seek you out." (Muller, p.61)xxviii.
She was also critical of the class hierarchy within the black community and regarded it as "a major obstacle to creating more active and effective branches that would be able t reach out to every sector of the African America community (Ransby, p.120)xxix Ella Baker was mainly critical of some black middle class professional who, according to her, were not helpful to social change because of their attitude.She wrote numerous letters, analyzing class politics within the organizations and the black community and articulating her egalitarian principles (Ibid, p. 119-121)xxx Likewise, she had been extremely critical of middle class women Direct action is an important component of any social movement as part of participatory democracy in which citizens take parts in various types of actions against social, political and religious injustices.The Civil Rights Movement in the United States is one of the largest social movements in history and it is famous for hundreds thousands of men and women taking to the streets for the equality of the African American people.However, who articulated the most important strategy for mass direct action at the grass root level?No doubt, the Montgomery bus boycott started by Rosa Parks and subsequent movement by the African American Community constituted an exemplary start of the direct action at the grass root level.Nevertheless, the very process of the formation of the Non-Violent Student Coordinating Committee (SNCC) and its subsequent direct mass action through sit-in at lunch counter and in every important area of life was conceived by Ella Baker who "called her colleagues on college campuses and sparked student-led non-violet demonstration nationwide."(Davis,p. 199)xxxi Prior to this, she saw direct action in the creation of an insurgent organization such as the Southern NAACP in the 1940s.Her formation of the In Friendship in support of the Montgomery Bus boycott is another example of indirect direct action because she exhorted the African American Community to continue their defiance by giving them monetary help.She actively supported a number of direct actions including the anti-Apartheid movement in South Africa in the 1970s and 80s and the Independence Movement of the Puerto Rican people in the 1970s because she was an activist par excellence.At one level, "..she was a practical, action-oriented kind of person" (Ransby, p. 356)xxxii Introspecting upon her own long career at seventy five she said, "I do not claim to have any corner on an answer, but I believe that struggle is eternal.Someone else carries on."(Ibid)xxxiii She had been associated with a number of organizations all over her activist life.She sought to lead them as much as it was possible in her own limited human capacity; but what distinguished her career had been the idea of participatory democratic struggle to be directly led by the people from below, the ultimate stakeholders in any social movement and not dictated by leaders from above.Citizenship is meaningless without the right to vote.No doubt, the African American men received citizenship following the Civil War but it had no meaning for them, especially in the South since they were not allowed to exercise their rights as citizens.Hence, a program was launched to get black men as well as women to register to vote.However, since literacy rate among black men and women had been historically low because of deprivation and injustice, registration for voting almost sounded hollow if they were not given citizenship education.This explains why Crusade for Citizenship project was launched and Ella Baker played a very important role in this project.In fact, she encouraged churches to teach basic reading and writing skills so that blacks could register to vote (Muller, p.58)xxxiv Enabling citizens to exercise their right to vote through educational programs can thus be regarded as one of the hallmarks of participatory democracy that Ella Baker had had been more closely associated with.Interestingly, education has been regarded as an instrument for empowering the subalterns for creating counter-hegemony in the philosophy of Antonio Gramsci (Forgacs, 2000)xxxv a Marxist philosopher from Italy because education is needed not only for self-knowledge but also for self-liberation.Ella baker also wanted to empower people through education for their own liberation by themselves.What is interesting here is that Gramsci, a philosopher and Ella Baker, an activist had come to the same conclusion in different times in the twentieth century.One might be tempted to think that Ella Baker had, perhaps, been influenced by Gramsci's philosophy of education but it can be argued without any doubt that Ella Baker had no access to Gramsci's philosophy which became available in English only in the 1970s whereas Ella Baker had been preaching her philosophy of education as a part of her participatory democracy from the middle of the 1950s.From this standpoint, Ella Baker had rightly been regarded not only as an activist but also as a thinker.xxxviConclusion Ella Baker's participatory democracy emerged as part of the American civil rights movement but it was mostly championed by Ell Baker who articulated it as social activist and thinker but not a political scientist.Nor was she a systemic thinker.To be sure, participatory democracy was a social praxis.Her social upbringing an egalitarian social ecology was the root of her idea of participatory democracy.The

i
On Civil Rights Movement, see Taylor Branch, Parting the Waters: America in the King Years 1954-63 (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1988).ii On the idea of nonviolence of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., see Ira Chernus, American Nonviolence: The History of an Idea (Maryknoll, New York: Orbis Book, 2004).iii On Women's view of leadership and power, see John.T. Rourke, International Politics on the World Stage (Connecticut: Houghton and Mifflin, 2007).iv British historian as well as philosopher Robin G. Collingwood has argued that if we wish to seek answer, what we need to do is ask relevant questions.For details, see his The Idea of History (Oxford University Press, 1994).v Muller, C., 1990, Ella Baker and the Origins of "participatory Democracy" in Vicki L. Crawford, Jacqueline Rouse and Barbara woods, Women in the Civil Rights Movement: Trailblazers & Torchbearers 1941-1965 eds.(Bloomington, Indiana University Press, 1990).viBarbara Ransby has studied Ella Baker's idea of democracy.However, her emphasis is on radical democracy.On the other hand, our emphasis is participatory democracy that she championed much more profoundly than any other civil rights leader.For Elal Baker's idea of radical democracy, see Barbara Ransby's Ella Baker and the Black Freedom Movement: A Radical Democratic Vision (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Pres, 2003).vii Charles M. Payne, I have Got the Light of Freedom: The Organizing Tradition and the Mississippi Freedom Struggle (Berkeley, California: University of California Press, 2007), 80-81 viii Carol Muller, "Ella baker and the Origins of "participatory Democracy" in Vicki L. Crawford, Jacqueline Rouse and Barbara woods, Women in the Civil Rights Movement, p. 45 ix Ibid., pp. 51-52 x Ibid., p. 58.xi Ibid.xii For details, see Charles M. Payne, I have Got the Light of Freedom: The Organizing Tradition and the Mississippi Freedom Struggle (Berkeley, California: University of California Press, 2007 xiii Ibid., p. 87 xiv Morris, A.,1984, The Origins of the Civil Rights Movement: Black Communities Organizing for Change, New York: The Free Press, p. 104 xv Ella Bake said this in her speech in North Carolina in the inaugural meeting of the SNCC.For details, see John White, Black Leadership in America: From Booker T. Washington to Jesse Jackson (London: Longman, 1990).P. 125 xvi Barbara Ransby, Ella Baker and the Black Freedom Movement: A radical Democratic Vision, p. 190 xvii Charles M. Payne, I have Got the Light of Freedom: The Organizing Tradition and the Mississippi Freedom Struggle, p. 68 xviii Ibid.xix Carol Muller, "Ella Baker and the Origins of "participatory Democracy" in Vicki L. Crawford, Jacqueline Rouse and Barbara woods, Women in the Civil Rights Movement: Trailblazers & Torchbearers 1941-1965 eds., p. 51 xx John Dittemer, Local People: The Struggle for Civil Rights in Mississippi (Urbana and Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 1994), p. 282 xxi Ibid.pp, 281-282.xxii John White, Black Leadership in America: From Booker T. Washington to Jesse Jackson (London: Longman, 1990), p. 125 and xxiii Charles M. Payne, Charles M. Payne, I have Got the Light of Freedom: The Organizing Tradition and the Mississippi Freedom Struggle, p. 98 xxiv John White, Black Leadership in America: From Booker T. Washington to Jesse Jackson, p. 125 xxv Ella Baker said this in her famous speech popularly called the "Bigger than a Hamburger" speech at the inaugural function of the SNCC at Shaw University at Raleigh in North Carolina.For a transcript of the speech, see Southern Patriot , Vol.18, 1960 xxvi For details, see Charles M. Payne, opt.cit., p. 99 xxvii Ibid., p. 98 xxviii Carol Muller, oft.Cit., p. 61 xxix Barbara Ransby, opt.cit., p. 120 xxx Ibid.pp.119-121 xxxi Wanda M. Davis, "The Defiant Ones: The Civil Rights Movement and College Student Protest, 1954-1975" in Julie Buckner Armstrong at al eds., Teaching the American Civil Rights Movement: Freedom's Bittersweet Song (New York: Routledge, 2002), p. 199 xxxii Barbara Ransby, opt.cit., 356 xxxiii Ibid.xxxiv Carol Muller, opt.cit., p. 58