Martin Luther King Vs Ella Baker Essay

Ella Baker and Martin Luther King Jr. did have their similarities as leaders of the Civil Rights Movement, but there were vast differences as well. Their differences allowed the Civil Rights Movement to be more encompassing while fighting for the same cause. Baker and King both grew up in the South, had religious upbringings, had at least some level of a higher education, and were public speakers. What set them apart was their differing opinions on who contributed to social change, and how. This is expressed through the varying social classes they depended on, importance placed on reputations developed through public associations, and nonviolence tactics that used to fight for equality. Even though Baker and King had different methods in which

Often, an unplanned action by a local could manifest as a rallying point for the movement. An example of a semi-spontaneous action done by a local was “Rosa Parks’s reasoned decision to violate a segregation ordinance,” a decision that later “sparked the Montgomery boycott” (Ransby 195). She believed in social change that derived from semi-spontaneous actions by the lower people, which were referred to as people from the pew, or locals. People from the pew had just as much impact on the civil rights movement as well-known leaders. Rosa Parks executed a semi-spontaneous action that resulted with a significant form of progress in the civil rights movement: the Montgomery Bus Boycott. A civil rights leader, like King, could have constructed a bus boycott, but Parks had just as much influence, even though she was not a leader. In addition, the younger generations were also undertaking semi-spontaneous actions, such as sit-ins. The local youth, not civil rights leaders, had enough driving force to influence a mass movement through these acts. Such actions began in a somewhat unplanned manner comparable to