The second volume in the True Tales for Young Readers series, this short biography of the civil rights leader is intended for middle school and high school readers. Ella Baker, who grew up in Littleton, North Carolina, is best remembered for the role she played in facilitating in April 1960 the organizational meeting of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee at Shaw University, her alma mater. With passion and clear understanding, Lea E. Williams outlines the life that brought Baker to this crucial point in U.S. history. Lea E. Williams, independent scholar in Greensboro and former administrator at Bennett College and North Carolina A&T State University, teaches English at Guilford Technical Community College. Williams is the author of Servants of the People: The 1960s Legacy of African American Leadership (1996) in which she profiles eight leaders in the civil rights movement.