Ella's Daughters: Women Organizing in the Radical Democratic Tradition of Ella Baker

This workshop will be an introduction to the 50 year political organizing career of Ella Baker through a spoken word monologue performed by a diverse group of 7 Ella's Daughters. We will then discuss Baker's tradition as a model for grassroots radical democratic organizing that focuses on the most oppressed sectors of our communities and values their strength and wisdom, with special focus on women. We will offer highlights of the work Ella's Daughters (ED) are doing in various struggles and contexts. Finally, we will involve participants in actually stitiching together patches of a social justice quilt which a group of ED artists have been working on for three years and which links multiple struggles. We will discuss how others can tap into Baker’s tradition and how it relates to the work of radical feminists of color from Audre Lorde to Chandra Mohanty.