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The development of the individual to his highest potential for the benefit of the group.

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Source: The Eyes on the Prize Civil Rights Reader: documents, speeches and firsthand accounts from the Black Freedom Struggle, 1954–1990, ed. Clayborne Carson et al. (Penguin Books, 1991), p. 121.
Source quality: Precise citation Points to a specific work with a page, chapter, date or similar locator, so you can look it up.

More by Ella Baker

I think you have to have a certain sense of your own value, and a sense of security on your part, to be able to forgo the glamor of what the leadership role offers.

Until the killing of black men, black mothers' sons, becomes as important to the rest of the country as the killing of a white mother's son, we who believe in freedom cannot rest until this happens. (1964)

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Strong people do not need strong leaders.

Remember, we are not fighting for the freedom of the Negro alone, but for the freedom of the human spirit, a larger freedom that encompasses all mankind.

People have to be made to understand that they cannot look for salvation anywhere but to themselves.

I have always thought what is needed is the development of people who are interested not in being leaders as much as in developing leadership among other people.

My basic sense of it has always been to get people to understand that in the long run they themselves are the only protection they have against violence or injustice.

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Quote text and notes from Wikiquote: Ella Baker (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0. Source quality and labels are our own summary of what Wikiquote records.