The Spirit of Ella Baker Lives On Through Maryland Shaw

Even as many around the world are honoring the life of Dr. Martin L. King, Jr. today; it need be known that celebrating him outside of context amounts to a dangerous narrowing of the Black Freedom Movement tradition in the United States. Dr. King didn’t work alone, but in concert with and propelled by many others. One of the people who helped make King’s impact possible and undergirded the development of youth activists during the same era was Ella Baker. You will be hard pressed to find monuments named in her honor, curricula with significant chapters on her life, or CD’s which captured her oratorical gifts, but nonetheless, in a societal arena often dominated by men, she was one of the most effective, behind-the-scenes, organizers and activists of her time.

Thankfully, the “Ella Baker” tradition lives on in Baltimore through young women like Maryland Shaw.

It was in the Baltimore Algebra Project (BAP) that now 22-year-old, Maryland Shaw, got her start in local activism. While a sophomore in high school, she was drawn to BAP after being frustrated by dated and tattered textbooks in high school that she was not allowed to take home to study from. Initially believing that she could do nothing about her problem; she learned of a student-led advocacy group that rejected the notion that youth were powerless to positively impact their own conditions. She joined BAP and not soon after she was helping to organize a three-day strike against educational inequality in the state.

Since that time, Maryland has deepened and broadened her participation in educational activism. In addition to fighting for equal resources for city schools; she is among the leaders of the campaign to halt the construction of a multi-million dollar youth jail in East Baltimore. She has done it all – from organizing community meetings with Baltimore residents about the youth jail to directly confronting Governor O’Malley as he campainged for re-election in 2010.

Today, Shaw is a student at Morgan State University with plans to study Early Childhood Education. She serves as a mentor and volunteer at the Urban Youth Initiative Project (UYIP) – a program of the Pan-Afrikan Liberation Movement. She is committed to nurturing the next generation of youth activists. When asked about the state of youth activism in the city, Maryland observed, “the more I hear about how we need to look to the youth [for leadership] the less I see it.”

Maryland Shaw is a descendant of Ella Baker in more ways than one and in an activist arena that remains dominated by high-powered and often prideful male egos; Shaw is leaving her own mark on Baltimore City and beyond.

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Tags: baltimore, Baltimore Algebra Project, Ella Baker, Maryland Shaw