Journalism Hero: Ida B. Wells

Ida B. Wells quote, AZ Quotes

  

This quote by Ida B. Wells, I think, sums up her career as a journalist. 

Ida B. Wells, 1893

I did my project on Ida B. Wells. I was really excited to do my research on her because she was an African American journalist which was relatable to me. 

Wells was born into slavery in 1862, during the Civil War. After her parents were freed, they ingrained in her the importance of being educated. 

Fun fact, she opened the first African American kindergarten in Chicago!

She attended Rust College and soon after enrolling, was expelled due to getting into an argument with the president of the college. 

Her parents and younger brother died of yellow fever which forced Wells to raise her other siblings and became an educator to support her family. 

She was an investigative journalist whose work focused on racism, specifically lynch mobs. She began her work on investigating lynchings after her friend Tom was lynched. 

Tom owned a store and was attacked by a group of white men trying to put him out of business. He killed one man, but believed that it was out of defense and that the court would agree with him. That was not the case.

Wells created a pamphlet that exposed lynchings and lynch mobs. The community was not happy about it and she received threats. The threats got so bad, she had to relocate to Chicago, Illinois.

She was also known as a muckraker. Muckrakers were journalists who exposed wrongdoings of companies and public figures. I wrote another blog post about them. Click here! Wells got involved with the World's Columbian Exposition boycott of 1893. The boycott was created after the committee was seen treating African Americans poorly. 

She also sued a train company back in Memphis, Tennessee for "unfair treatment" after she was forced off first class even though she had a ticket. Although she won the case on the local level, it was dismissed in the federal court.

Ida B. Wells, 1917

 In 1895, Wells married a well known African American lawyer named Ferdinand Barnett and had four children. Despite being a wife and mother, Wells traveled all over the world to shed light on the racism going on in America. She went around to different countries informing them of the lynchings of black people in America.

She also believed in women's rights. During her time in foreign countries, Wells approached white women a part of the suffrage movement and questioned as to why they didn't also focus on lynchings. Those white women would criticize her, but that didn't stop Wells from continuing to fight for what she believed in. 

Wells was a founder of the National Association of Colored Women's Club. She was also one of the founders of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, also known as the NAACP, but was never officially named one of the founders. 

Throughout her years fighting for racial justice, she fought alongside W.E.B. Dubois and Frederick Douglass. Ida B. Wells passed away on March 25, 1931.