Ida B.

Wells-Barnett and Her Passion for Justice subscribe to the paper and it flourished, allowing her to
leave her position as an educator.
Ida B. Wells-Barnett was a fearless anti-lynching In 1892 three of her friends were lynched.
crusader, suffragist, women's rights advocate, journalist, Thomas Moss, Calvin McDowell, and Henry Stewart.
and speaker. She stands as one of our nation's most These three men were owners of People's Grocery
uncompromising leaders and most ardent defenders of Company, and their small grocery had taken away
democracy. She was born in Holly Springs, Mississippi customers from competing white businesses. A group of
in 1862 and died in Chicago, Illinois 1931 at the age of angry white men thought they would "eliminate" the
sixty-nine. competition so they attacked People's grocery, but the
Although enslaved prior to the Civil War, her owners fought back, shooting one of the attackers. The
parents were able to support their seven children because owners of People's Grocery were arrested, but a lynch-
her mother was a "famous" cook and her father was a mob broke into the jail, dragged them away from town,
skilled carpenter. When Ida was only fourteen, a tragic and brutally murdered all three. Again, this atrocity
epidemic of Yellow Fever swept through Holly Springs galvanized her mettle. She wrote in The Free Speech
and killed her parents and youngest sibling. Emblematic The city of Memphis has demonstrated that neither
of the righteousness, responsibility, and fortitude that character nor standing avails the Negro if he dares to
characterized her life, she kept the family together by protect himself against the white man or become his
securing a job teaching. She managed to continue her rival. There is nothing we can do about the lynching
education by attending near-by Rust College. She now, as we are out-numbered and without arms. The
eventually moved to Memphis to live with her aunt and white mob could help itself to ammunition without pay,
help raise her youngest sisters. but the order is rigidly enforced against the selling of
It was in Memphis where she first began to fight guns to Negroes. There is therefore only one thing left to
(literally) for racial and gender justice. In 1884 she was do; save our money and leave a town which will neither
asked by the conductor of the Chesapeake & Ohio protect our lives and property, nor give us a fair trial in
Railroad Company to give up her seat on the train to a the courts, but takes us out and murders us in cold blood
white man and ordered her into the smoking or "Jim when accused by white persons.
Crow" car, which was already crowded with other Many people took the advice Wells penned in
passengers. Despite the 1875 Civil Rights Act banning her paper and left town; other members of the Black
discrimination on the basis of race, creed, or color, in community organized a boycott of white owned business
theaters, hotels, transports, and other public to try to stem the terror of lynchings. Her newspaper
accommodations, several railroad companies defied this office was destroyed as a result of the muckraking and
congressional mandate and racially segregated its investigative journalism she pursued after the killing of
passengers. It is important to realize that her defiant act her three friends. She could not return to Memphis, so
was before Plessy v. Ferguson (1896), the U.S. Supreme she moved to Chicago. She however continued her
Court decision that established the fallacious doctrine of blistering journalistic attacks on Southern injustices,
"separate but equal," which constitutionalized racial being especially active in investigating and exposing the
segregation. Wells wrote in her autobiography: fraudulent "reasons" given to lynch Black men, which by
I refused, saying that the forward car [closest to the now had become a common occurrence.
locomotive] was a smoker, and as I was in the ladies' car, In Chicago, she helped develop numerous
I proposed to stay. . . [The conductor] tried to drag me African American women and reform organizations, but
out of the seat, but the moment he caught hold of my she remained diligent in her anti-lynching crusade,
arm I fastened my teeth in the back of his hand. I had writing Southern Horrors: Lynch Law in All Its
braced my feet against the seat in front and was holding Phases. She also became a tireless worker for women's
to the back, and as he had already been badly bitten he suffrage, and happened to march in the famous 1913
didn't try it again by himself. He went forward and got march for universal suffrage in Washington, D.C. Not
the baggageman and another man to help him and of able to tolerate injustice of any kind, Ida B. Wells-
course they succeeded in dragging me out. Barnett, along with Jane Addams, successfully blocked
Wells was forcefully removed from the train and the establishment of segregated schools in Chicago.
the other passengers--all whites--applauded. When Wells In 1895 Wells married the editor of one of
returned to Memphis, she immediately hired an attorney Chicago's early Black newspapers. She wrote: "I was
to sue the railroad. She won her case in the local circuit married in the city of Chicago to Attorney F. L. Barnett,
courts, but the railroad company appealed to the and retired to what I thought was the privacy of a home."
Supreme Court of Tennessee, and it reversed the lower She did not stay retired long and continued writing and
court's ruling. This was the first of many struggles Wells organizing. In 1906, she joined with William E.B.
engaged, and from that moment forward, she worked DuBois and others to further the Niagara Movement, and
tirelessly and fearlessly to overturn injustices against she was one of two African American women to sign
women and people of color. "the call" to form the NAACP in 1909. Although Ida B.
Her suit against the railroad company also Wells was one of the founding members of the National
sparked her career as a journalist. Many papers wanted Association for the Advancement of Colored People
to hear about the experiences of the 25-year-old school (NAACP), she was also among the few Black leaders to
teacher who stood up against white supremacy. Her explicitly oppose Booker T. Washington and his strategies.
writing career blossomed in papers geared to African As a result, she was viewed as one the most radical of the so-
American and Christian audiences. called "radicals" who organized the NAACP and marginalized
In 1889 Wells became a partner in the Free from positions within its leadership. As late as 1930, she
became disgusted by the nominees of the major parties to the
Speech and Headlight. The paper was also owned by
state legislature, so Wells-Barnett decided to run for the
Rev. R. Nightingale-- the pastor of Beale Street Baptist Illinois State legislature, which made her one of the first Black
Church. He "counseled" his large congregation to
women to run for public office in the United States. A year
later, she passed away after a lifetime crusading for justice.