​"The way to right wrongs is to turn the light of truth upon them."

• JOURNALIST
• Led a crusade against lynching
• Born a slave shortly before Emancipation
• At 16 years old, both of her parents died from yellow fever; she dropped out of school and took a job as a schoolteacher to support and raise her five siblings
• Five years later (and 72 years before Rosa Parks), she REFUSED to give up her seat in a whites-only train car and was forcibly removed
• SUED the railroad company and won, but after losing the appeal, she called for Blacks to boycott the train -- this same strategy was famously used in the Montgomery Bus Boycott during the 1960s Civil Rights Movement
• In 1892, her close friend, Thomas Moss, was murdered by a white mob, propelling Wells to begin an exhaustive report on the lynching of Black men
• PIONEERED investigative reporting techniques that are now considered standard practice, traveling across the South for months, interviewing witnesses, and conducting research into dozens of cases, publishing her findings in the newspaper she ran
• Ultimately DISPROVED the common perception that men who were lynched were guilty of rape -- most of the men had never even been accused of a crime, and many were actually in consensual interracial relationships
• After receiving death threats, she moved to New York but continued her work, writing for larger papers and even traveling to England to lecture on lynching
• Cofounded the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, and the National Association of Colored Women
• Continued to fight for social change throughout her life, including an unsuccessful run for Senator in Illinois, and a second career as a probation officer
• In May 2020, Wells was awarded a posthumous Pulitzer Prize special citation for her work

Photo By Barnett [Public domain] via Wikimedia Commons

No One Puts Ida In The Corner

Also a fervent supporter of women's rights, Wells organized a group of Black suffragists to join the 1913 women's parade in Washington DC (led by Alice Paul), only to be told that Black marchers had to walk at the rear of the procession instead of with their white state delegates. Wells ignored their orders, waiting with her group on the sidewalk until her state came along and then joining in right alongside them.

Bibliography: Adams, Ebony and Anita Sarkeesian. History vs. Women: The Defiant Lives That They Don't Want You To Know. New York: Feiwel and Friends, 2018. Print.
(2020, May 4). Pulitzer Prize: 2020 Winners List. New York Times. https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/04/business/media/pulitzer-prize-winners.html?searchResultPosition=2
Dickerson, Caitlin. (2018). Ida B. Wells. https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2018/obituaries/overlooked-ida-b-wells.html

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Support these organizations dedicated to preserving her story:

Ida B. Wells Memorial Foundation
Ida B. Wells-Barnett Museum
The Ida B. Wells Society for Investigative Reporting

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