On this date in 1903 Ella Baker is born in Norfolk, Virginia. The cause of her people was instilled in her from a young age. As a young girl, Baker listened to her grandmother tell stories about slave revolts she witnessed. Baker would go on to attended Shaw University, graduating as class valedictorian. Baker was a civil rights worker who directed the New York branch of the NAACP. She also became executive director of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference in the 1960's during student integration of lunch counters in the southern states. Ella Baker played a key role in the formation of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee and its voter registration drive in Mississippi.