The Radical Legacy of Civil Rights & Feminist Movements for Contemporary Progressive Politics

Barbara Ransby is Associate Professor of History and African-American Studies at the University of Illinois at Chicago. Ransby published the book Ella Baker and the Black Freedom Movement: A Radical Democratic Vision and founded the organization “Ella’s Daughters” to advance activism in the tradition of Ella Baker (1903-1986). Baker was a grassroots organizer in the black freedom struggle who worked in predominantly male political circles that included W.E.B. DuBois, Thurgood Marshall, and Martin Luther King Jr. Ella’s Daughters embraces Ms. Baker’s political philosophy of working on multiple fronts at once, borrowing from various ideologies to make sense of the world and to fashion a transformative strategy.
This is the 2009 Hull Chair Lecture, sponsored by UCSB Feminist Studies and the UCSB Women’s Center, with co-sponsorship from the Departments of History and Black Studies, and other UCSB offices and organizations.

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