As the civil rights movement began to move in different directions in the late 1960s, radical became synonymous with revolutionary, both as an adjective and a noun.  (Radical is from the Late Latin word for “root.”) Baker was already in her mid-60s when she gave this opinion, used as an epigraph to the Introduction in Barbara Ransby, Ella Baker and the Black Freedom Movement: A Radical Democratic Vision (UNC Press: Chapel Hill, 2003).

In order for us as poor and oppressed people to become a part of society that is meaningful, the system under which we now exist has to be radically changed.  This means that we are going to have to learn to think in radical terms.  I use the term radical in its original meaning—getting down to and understanding the root cause.  It means facing a system that does not lend itself to your needs and devising means by which you change that system.  

From ELLA BAKER AND THE BLACK FREEDOM MOVEMENT: A RADICAL DEMOCRATIC VISION by Barbara Ransby. Copyright © 2003 by the University of North Carolina Press. Used by permission of the publisher. www.uncpress.org

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