Her dignity won her a measure of respect from the ministers of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLS), who balked at taking advice, let alone direction, from a woman. The respect that she garnered from young people was exemplified by the way they addressed her: as Miss Baker. Only one of the students called her anything remotely like her first name. He was Charles McDew, who claimed that he knew a secret about her name and called her Miss Jo Ella. In fact, she had not been named Jo Ella but Ella Josephine. Another movement activist, Dorothy Burlage, recalled one time when she unthinkingly addressed her as "Ella," and then she was so embarrassed that she apologized for using her first name. Miss Baker immediately soothed her, saying, "That's all right. You know instinctively when the time has come when you can call me Ella."

She believed strongly in the importance of organizing people to formulate their own questions, to define their own problems, and to find their own solutions, and throughout her life she worked to set masses of people in motion.