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Historic marker honoring Littleton civil rights leader to return

Ella Baker devoted her life to organizing and established the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee at Shaw University.

Posted 2022-04-08T16:01:02+00:00 - Updated 2022-04-08T16:05:57+00:00

A historic highway marker of a woman and civil rights leader will be reinstalled in Littleton.

The marker will return to Main Street off U.S. 158 near East End Avenue, according to state officials.

State officials said the marker that honored Ella Baker was damaged in 2019 and placed in storage.

Baker, known as the mother of the civil rights movement, devoted her life to organizing and established the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee at Shaw University. Her work at Shaw University inspired the Greensboro sit-ins that started on Feb. 1, 1960.

The memorial was repaired with money from North Carolina Highway Historical Marker endowment fund, state officials said in a release.

A ceremony to unveil the repaired memorial will take place on April 8 at 11 a.m. at her childhood home on East End Avenue.