Ella was given the nickname "Fundi", which is a Swahili word meaning a person who teaches a craft to the next generation.
Inspired by the historic bus boycott in Montgomery, Alabama, in 1955, Baker co-founded the organization In Friendship to raise money to fight against Jim Crow Laws in the deep South.
Attended college at Shaw University where she graduated valedictorian in 1927.
In 2009, Ella Baker was memorialized on a US postage stamp.