On July 16th 1862, two Mississippi slaves, James and Elizabeth Wells, welcomed their
first child, Ida into the world.
Under chattel slavery, she was born a slave, but that would change 6 months after her birth,
when the Civil War ended and the Emancipation Proclamation freed the slaves.
In Holly Springs Mississippi, her parents were enslaved by Bolling Spires, a contractor,
and after legalized slavery ended, they agreed to continue working for them.
While some things would remain the same, change was on the horizon and post slavery racial
tensions would change their lives and the life of their newborn.
James and Elizabeth were both Republicans that were very politically involved.
James was part of a political group called the Loyal League and he helped establish the
first Historically Black College, Shaw University where he sat on the board of trustees.
The freedmen of Holly Springs outnumbered the white men and the growing prosperity of
black people gave the Ku Klux Klan an excuse to terrorize groups invested in uplifting
the black race; especially the Loyal League.
While this made the Wells nervous, it didn't stop them from teaching their children the
importance of education and political literacy.
Ida started her education at a very young age and attended Shaw University during her
teen years.
She was a good student, but she often found herself in conflict with the University's
mostly white faculty.
In 1878, she left school to visit her Grandmother and during that time there was a Yellow Fever
Outbreak in the Mississippi Valley.
Her Grandmother lived outside of Holly Springs and when Ida got news from her home town,
it was a bit unexpected.
A mail carrier came with a letter telling Ida that both of her parents had passed away
in her absence.
She fainted almost immediately and when she recovered she wanted to return to Holly Springs
as soon as possible to attend to her siblings.
However, her family wouldn't let her return until they received news that the area was
clear of the Yellow Fever.
By the time she returned, she learned that one of her siblings had also passed away.
James and Elizabeth had buried one of their children two years previously and with the
passing of another child, there were now only six of them.
At this point most of the children had yellow fever.
Initially, there were plans of splitting the children up, but Ida was determined to keep
her family together.
She knew now that she would have to become the breadwinner.
Wells had been taking two year teaching course at Shaw University and decided that she would
adjust her appearance to make herself appear older and take the teaching certification
exam.
At the age of 16,she managed to pass and was able to secure a job teaching in Holly Springs.
She would ride on the back of a mule 5 miles from her home to the school and would only
return on the weekends to maintain the house.
She was able to keep her family together for a moment, but ultimately she wasn't unable
to and various family members took over.
Under the encouragement of her aunt Frannie, she moved to Memphis in 1881 where she began
teaching at a school at a dirt road intersection.
She had various teaching jobs in Tennessee and during the summer she attended Fisk University
where she took teaching courses.
She was able to secure a job in Woodstock and she would take the train to and from work
every day.
In 1884, she was returning for her teaching job and had purchased a first class ticket
to sit at the front of the train.
She was asked to move to the smoking cart by the conductor and she refused, stating
that she had paid for her ticket and had the right to seat where she was.
It took three men to physically remove her from her seat and when they did, instead of
going to the smoking cart, she got off on the next stop.
When she returned to Memphis, she immediately contacted a lawyer and was able to sue the
Chesapeake and Ohio Railroad Company for $500 in damages.
This was the first case of its kind in the south and it got Ida, who was now a in her
early 20s, a lot of attention.
However, the decision was reversed and she had to return the $500 dollars and pay $200
dollars in court fees.
This was the incident that started her path towards journalism.
She became a figure that many newspapers wanted to cover: the black teacher who stood up to
white supremacy and at least for a moment, won.
She began writing about racism for various Black and Christian themed newspapers under
the pen name Lola.
By 1889, she became a partner at the Free Speech and Headlight, a paper owned by Reverend
R Nightingale who encouraged his parishioners to subscriber to her paper.
With her success, she was able to leave behind teaching to pursue journalism full time.
The success of black businesses in Memphis created tension from white competitors.
In 1892, Thomas Moss, Calvin McDowell and Henry Steward owned a small grocery store
called the People's Grocery Company.
A white owned grocer across the street started to lose business.
One night, three men came into the back of the People's Grocery Company and were set
on trashing the business.
One of the owners fought back and shot one of the men.
All three owners, along with a hundred other black men were arrested on suspicion.
One night an all white lynch mob forced its way into the jail, fished out the three owners
and lynched them.
The incident caused so much tension that the sheriff was ordered to shoot, on sight, any
negro who was causing trouble.
This inspired the white population to begin randomly shooting black people.
These men were all personal friends of Wells and she decided to pen an article condemning
lynching and organized black citizens to fight against the practice.
In her article, Southern Horrors: Lynch Law and All its phases, she states that she discovered
that there were 161 black who were lynched in that year alone.
In the Free Speech she wrote:
"The city of Memphis has demonstrated that neither character nor standing avails the
Negro if he dares to protect himself against the white man or become his rival.
There is nothing we can do about the lynching now, as we are out-numbered and without arms.
The white mob could help itself to ammunition without pay, but the order is rigidly enforced
against the selling of guns to Negroes.
There is therefore only one thing left to do; save our money and leave a town which
will neither protect our lives and property, nor give us a fair trial in the courts, but
takes us out and murders us in cold blood when accused by white persons."
This was the incident that sparked Well's career in the fight against Lynching.
The Black Women's Club in Memphis gave her $500 to investigate lynching and she discovered
that black men were often lynched for petty reasons such as not paying a debt, public
drunkenness and simple disrespect to white people.
She also discovered that there were an average of 100 lynching cases per year and in the
space of a month, she covered 8 of them in Memphis alone.
She also discovered that 1/3rd of these lynchings were from accusations that black men were
pursuing relationships with white women.
She stated that violence against them was justified as it was seen as a defense to pure
white womanhood.
She penned an article for the Free speech about how white women would often initiate
these relationships and this angered the white men in the city.
When she was out of town speaking in Philadelphia, a white mob destroyed the office of the Free
Speech and threatened to kill her.
Instead of returning back to Memphis, she decided to relocate in Chicago.
She continued her crusade against lynching in 1893 traveling through the Northeast United
States and Europe.
She helped establish the first Black Women's Civics Club in Chicago and Boston.
She had a strong hand in the establishment of the NAACP, but would later cut ties with
the organization as she disagreed with its mainly white leadership.
The next year, she published A Red Record: Tabulated Statistics and Alleged Causes of
Lynching in the United States 1892-1894.
She made sure to use all white sources so they couldn't be challenged.
She married Ferdinand L Barnette, a lawyer, activist and founder of the one of the first
black papers in Chicago, The Conservator.
After their marriage, she became the owner of the Conservator and became its editor.
She had her first son in 1896 and would have a second the following year.
Her colleagues feared that she would leave her work behind to be a mother, but that wasn't
in her spirit.
She met with President McKinley to speak with him about lynching in South Carolina.
He issued a statement condemning lynching, but no legislation was passed.
She befriended Susan B Anthony and Jane Addams and became a Suffragette.
She marched in the famous 1913 Suffragette March on Washington for a woman's right
to vote.
She was told initially that she would have to march at the end of the parade with other
black women and this made her not want to participate.
However, strong willed as ever, as the parade began, she positioned herself in the front
of the march between two white men who supported the movement.
After World War 1, she wrote about the race riots in Chicago, Arkansas and St. Louis for
the Conservator and Newspapers across the country.
Her time fighting for suffrage inspired her to run for the President of the National Association
of Colored Women 1924.
She was defeated, but that didn't stop her from running for Senator in Illinois in 1930.
She had become frustrated with the lack of action politicians had in addressing the concerns
of Chicago's black ghettos.
She wouldn't win, but would blaze trails for other women to run in the future.
.
Ida B Wells was a trailblazer and she knew this and was quite disappointed that there
wasn't a lot being written or recorded about her life.
So, in the spirit of so many of the things she's done, she decided to pick up a pen
and do it herself.
She started to write her autobiography in 1928 and would pass away on March 25th 1931.
Her Autobiography would later be published with edits from her daughter.
Ida B Wells was so many things: an activist, a social researcher, a community organizer
and more than anything, a writer.
She saw injustice and dedicated her life to shining a light onto it.
She's a testament to how even in the hardest and darkest of times, we should never lose
our will to fight for what we know to be right.
Even if it means putting pen to paper, your voice could be revolutionary.
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