Ida Wells (1862-1931) was the first child of James and Lizzie Wells who had been slaves of the Confederate states. The parents were freed by the Union, thanks to the Emancipation Proclamation in Dec 1862. However living in Mississippi, these African Americans still faced racial prejudices and discriminatory practices.
As a member of the progressive Republican Party during Reconstruction, Ida’s father was involved with the Freedman’s Aid Society - a group that sent a supply of teachers from the North and provided housing for them in the South. And James also served on the first board of trustees at Shaw University-Rust College, a school that opened in Holly Springs MS for newly freed slaves in 1866.
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Photo credit: Memphis History
She was teaching, looking to raise support for her cause among reform-minded whites. Upset by the ban on African-American exhibitors at the 1893 World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago, Wells protested the ban by writing a pamphlet called "The Reason Why the Coloured American Is Not Represented in the World's Columbian Exposition." Her project was supported by the famous abolitionist lawyer-editor Ferdinand Barnett. [He had been the third black person to be admitted to the Illinois bar; his first wife Molly had been the first black woman to graduate from the University of Michigan].
Wells took her movement to England, and created the British Anti-Lynching Society in 1894. She came home, settled in Chicago where she married her beloved Ferdinand Barnett in 1895, a widower with two children of his own. While the couple eventually had another four children together, Wells remained committed to her social and political activism.
Wells wrote that during the post-war Reconstruction Era, whites ran mob lynchings to suppress black political activity and to re-establish white supremacy. Through her lectures and books eg Red Record: Tabulated Statistics and Alleged Causes of Lynching 1895, Wells dealt with the Rape Myth used by lynch mobs to justify the murder of African American males.
In 1898 Wells brought her anti-lynching campaign to the White House, leading a protest in Washington DC where she visited President William McKinley (1897-1901).
After brutal assaults on African-Americans continued in Springfield Ill in 1908, Wells attended a special conference for the National Association of Coloured Women.
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Ida Wells-Barnett House, the Chicago home of Ida and Ferdinand Barnett from 1919-30
In Chicago, she co-founded many African-American reform organisations. In March 1913, as Wells prepared to join the suffrage parade through President Woodrow Wilson (1913–21)’s inauguration in Washington D.C, march organisers asked her to leave. Apparently many middle-class white women had embraced the suffragists’ cause because they believed the vote would guarantee white supremacy (sic)!
The connection with Woodrow Wilson was important. As part of the National Equal Rights League’s role, Wells asked the President to put an end to discriminatory hiring practices for government jobs.
In Chicago, Ida Wells and reforming social workers Jane Addams successfully blocked the establishment of segregated schools. In 1930, Wells stood for the Illinois State Legislature but failed. Alas her health problems continued; she died in Mar 1931 in Chicago, leaving behind a powerful written record of her lifetime crusading for justice.
As a member of the progressive Republican Party during Reconstruction, Ida’s father was involved with the Freedman’s Aid Society - a group that sent a supply of teachers from the North and provided housing for them in the South. And James also served on the first board of trustees at Shaw University-Rust College, a school that opened in Holly Springs MS for newly freed slaves in 1866.
Southern Horrors,
one of the many books and booklets written by Ida Wells
But Ida suddenly had to leave school when both of her parents and one sibling died of yellow fever in the 1878 epidemic; she became the primary care giver for her 6 surviving siblings! Only in 1882, when her brothers worked as carpenter apprentices and her sisters moved to an aunt’s house in Memphis, could Wells study again at Shaw University.
On a Memphis-Nashville train ride in 1884, Wells had a 1st-class ticket. Unexpectedly the conductor ordered her to move to the 2nd class car for African Americans; outraged, this brave black woman refused! As she was forcibly removed from the train by the conductor and some passengers, she bit a conductor’s hand. Wells returned to Memphis and sued the Chesapeake-Ohio Railroad Co, winning a settlement of $500. The Railroad Co appealed, and in 1887 the Supreme Court of Tennessee ordered Wells to pay court fees instead.
This double humiliation led Ida Wells to write about race and politics. She wrote editorials in southern black news papers, challenging the infamous Jim Crow system that legalised segregation.
Ida was offered a job in, then bought a share of a Memphis newspaper, the Free Speech and Headlight.
Shaw University-Rust College,
Holly Springs Mississippi
opened for newly freed slaves in 1866.
Holly Springs Mississippi
opened for newly freed slaves in 1866.
While working as a journalist and publisher, Wells also held a position as a teacher in a segregated public school in Memphis. She became a vocal critic of the condition of blacks-only schools in the city, and was fired from her job!
Wells first became very well known internationally as an activist when she brought attention to the lynching of African Americans in the South. In 1892, African-American Tom Moss, Calvin McDowell and Will Stewart set up the Peoples’ Grocery Shop in Memphis. Their new, successful business drew customers away from local white-owned shops, so inevitably the white shop-owners and their supporters clashed with the black men.
One night, Moss and his friends guarded their shop against white men gathered to attack and injured several of the white vandals. The three black men were arrested and brought to gaol, but didn’t get to court; a lynch mob took the three from their cells and murdered them.
After the brutal lynching of her friends, Wells put her own life at risk; she spent two months travelling in the South, gathering information on other lynching incidents. One of her editorials infuriated some of the city's whites. A mob stormed the office of her newspaper, tearing the place apart. Fortunately Wells had been travelling to New York City at the time and was safe.
Bravely she went on to found groups striving for African-American justice. Wells wrote a detailed report on lynching for the New York Age, an African-American newspaper. In 1892 she published the book Southern Horrors: Lynch Law in All Its Phases, detailing her findings.
Wells first became very well known internationally as an activist when she brought attention to the lynching of African Americans in the South. In 1892, African-American Tom Moss, Calvin McDowell and Will Stewart set up the Peoples’ Grocery Shop in Memphis. Their new, successful business drew customers away from local white-owned shops, so inevitably the white shop-owners and their supporters clashed with the black men.
One night, Moss and his friends guarded their shop against white men gathered to attack and injured several of the white vandals. The three black men were arrested and brought to gaol, but didn’t get to court; a lynch mob took the three from their cells and murdered them.
After the brutal lynching of her friends, Wells put her own life at risk; she spent two months travelling in the South, gathering information on other lynching incidents. One of her editorials infuriated some of the city's whites. A mob stormed the office of her newspaper, tearing the place apart. Fortunately Wells had been travelling to New York City at the time and was safe.
Bravely she went on to found groups striving for African-American justice. Wells wrote a detailed report on lynching for the New York Age, an African-American newspaper. In 1892 she published the book Southern Horrors: Lynch Law in All Its Phases, detailing her findings.
The Peoples’ Grocery Shop in Memphis
ran by African-American Tom Moss, Calvin McDowell and Will Stewart Photo credit: Memphis History
She was teaching, looking to raise support for her cause among reform-minded whites. Upset by the ban on African-American exhibitors at the 1893 World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago, Wells protested the ban by writing a pamphlet called "The Reason Why the Coloured American Is Not Represented in the World's Columbian Exposition." Her project was supported by the famous abolitionist lawyer-editor Ferdinand Barnett. [He had been the third black person to be admitted to the Illinois bar; his first wife Molly had been the first black woman to graduate from the University of Michigan].
Wells took her movement to England, and created the British Anti-Lynching Society in 1894. She came home, settled in Chicago where she married her beloved Ferdinand Barnett in 1895, a widower with two children of his own. While the couple eventually had another four children together, Wells remained committed to her social and political activism.
Wells wrote that during the post-war Reconstruction Era, whites ran mob lynchings to suppress black political activity and to re-establish white supremacy. Through her lectures and books eg Red Record: Tabulated Statistics and Alleged Causes of Lynching 1895, Wells dealt with the Rape Myth used by lynch mobs to justify the murder of African American males.
In 1898 Wells brought her anti-lynching campaign to the White House, leading a protest in Washington DC where she visited President William McKinley (1897-1901).
After brutal assaults on African-Americans continued in Springfield Ill in 1908, Wells attended a special conference for the National Association of Coloured Women.
In Chicago, she co-founded many African-American reform organisations. In March 1913, as Wells prepared to join the suffrage parade through President Woodrow Wilson (1913–21)’s inauguration in Washington D.C, march organisers asked her to leave. Apparently many middle-class white women had embraced the suffragists’ cause because they believed the vote would guarantee white supremacy (sic)!
The connection with Woodrow Wilson was important. As part of the National Equal Rights League’s role, Wells asked the President to put an end to discriminatory hiring practices for government jobs.
In Chicago, Ida Wells and reforming social workers Jane Addams successfully blocked the establishment of segregated schools. In 1930, Wells stood for the Illinois State Legislature but failed. Alas her health problems continued; she died in Mar 1931 in Chicago, leaving behind a powerful written record of her lifetime crusading for justice.