Dorothy G. Baker

Dorothy G. Baker, age 93, of Birmingham, Alabama, passed away peacefully on March 5th following a severe stroke. She was surrounded by her family throughout her short stay in the supportive environment at the UAB Palliative Care Unit. Dorothy, known as Dot by most of her family and friends, was a remarkable woman who lived through remarkable times and left a legacy of good works that will continue to reverberate well beyond her mortal existence.

Dot was born in the small town of Summerland, Mississippi, where she lived until the age of 6 when her family moved to Atlanta to escape the Depression. Dot was always an academic achiever and was placed two grades ahead when she started elementary school. She graduated from Atlanta's Fulton County High School at age 16, where she excelled at math and science. As a woman, she was not eligible to attend Georgia Institute of Technology in those times and could not afford to attend a technical university out of state. Instead, she enrolled in the University of Georgia, where she graduated magna cum laude, class of 1945, at the young age of 18 with a BA in math and physics. Dot had hopes of getting a job as an engineer at the nearby Lockheed plant but the war had just ended and technical jobs for women were scarce. She went to work for Southern Bell as an accounting clerk in the Department of Engineering where she met her future husband, James J. Baker (Jim). They were married on January 24, 1948. After two years, Jim was offered a promotion and company transfer to Birmingham where they bought a small home in Crestline and began raising a family. While expecting her first child, Dot resigned from Southern Bell and devoted her energies to full-time motherhood. After giving birth to two sons and expecting her third child, a daughter, in 1956, Dot and Jim were able to build a bigger house in what is now Vestavia Hills. Dot and Jim soon joined and subsequently become very active members in the Vestavia Hills United Methodist Church. It was during this time, as a young mother, that Dot began to reflect on the importance of social change and to form personal relationships that would influence the rest of her life.

After her last child started school, Dot was invited to join the American Association of University Women (AAUW). Through this organization she met many other educated and accomplished women and became more and more interested and involved in human rights and issues of social justice. Through her involvement in AAUW, the church’s urban outreach ministries and, later, several other influential organizations, Dot would become a fierce advocate for those that could not always advocate for themselves.

Through her work with Access Unlimited, she advocated to make old and new buildings more accessible for the wheelchair bound, as well as to make sidewalks, public housing and public transportation wheel chair accessible. Through her work with Greater Birmingham Ministries, where she served as a board member for over 25 years, she worked to progress social justice, particularly in regards to low income and minority communities in Birmingham. Later, she advocated for public policy reforms at the state level in partnership with organizations like Alabama Arise to make changes that would provide for a more just society.

In 1982, as nuclear weapons proliferated and the threat of nuclear war between the United States and the Soviet Union became an existential crisis, Dot joined her daughter and nearly one million others in New York City for a peaceful march and rally calling for a nuclear freeze. She then came home to Birmingham and began organizing locally with others in the community, eventually forming the Alabama Chapter for Nuclear Freeze and representing her congressional district in the national Nuclear Freeze Campaign. Dot continued to develop her leadership and organizational skills through this work and was later nominated to participate in Leadership Birmingham. A chapter devoted to her anti-nuclear activism is included in the book, "People Waging Peace" by Elizabeth Anne McGuiness (1988).

As the tensions between the Soviet Union and the United States declined with the end of the Cold War, Dot shifted her focus to global peace and justice supporting the work of the United Nations. Being a seasoned leader and organizer, she became a founding member of the Greater Birmingham Chapter of the United Nations Association-USA. During these years she was very involved in promoting the Model United Nations program in area high schools and colleges, including the chapter’s sponsorship of a high school essay contest. Dot would remain involved in this organization into her late 80’s.

Dot always took great pride and interest in her children’s careers and activities. As she became a grandmother, she extended that pride and interest to the lives of her three grandchildren. She always had room for her family even when she was the busiest with her volunteerism and activism. She was a loving and engaged mother and grandmother and always supported the interests and endeavors of her children and grandchildren.

Dot was preceded in death by her beloved husband, Jim, her father William Vernon Gambrell, her mother, Lucy Beatrice Moore Gambrell and her sister Mary Jo Gambrell. She is survived by her brother, Gary Hubert Gambrell, her children, James Michael Baker, Charles Scott Baker (Anjanette), Carol Suzanne Baker (Richard Lovelady), her former daughter-in-law, Deborah Lechner, her grandchildren, Charles ‘Kai’ Solomon Baker (Chel), Dorothy Nevé Baker and Elizabeth Jamison Baker, as well as several nieces and a nephew.

A memorial service will be held in the chapel at Vestavia Hills United Methodist Church, 2061 Kentucky Avenue, Vestavia Hills, AL, 35216, on Thursday, March 12, 2020, at 11:00am, followed by a noon reception and visitation.

In lieu of flowers, please honor Dot with a memorial donation to one of the following organizations: Greater Birmingham Ministries, 2304 12th Avenue North, Birmingham, AL 35234; or UAB Center for Palliative and Supportive Care, Department of Medicine Development Office, 1808 7th Ave S, BDB 420, Birmingham, AL 35294.