I think it goes without saying that I could not have a series on influential Black journalists and not talk about the original badass freedom fighter-writer, Ms. Ida B. Wells. Ida B. Wells the journalist, was a true crusader for justice who, like Frederick Douglass, understood the power of the press and used it to fight tirelessly for the dignity and rights of Black people. More specifically, Wells used her own newspaper – among other tactics – to bring attention and action to the horrors of lynching.
Early Years
In 1862, Ida Bell Wells was born into slavery in Mississippi, but became free at six months old when the Emancipation Proclamation was issued. The child of two politically active parents, Wells attended school and began her college career, but then both of her parents died in a yellow fever epidemic when she was only 16 years old. Suddenly orphaned and responsible for her younger siblings, Wells found a teaching job to support the family.
When she was twenty years old, Wells and her sisters moved to Memphis, Tennessee to live with an aunt, and there Wells continued her teaching career, but was able to continue her college education taking weekend courses at Fisk University. So, the story goes, while she was teaching in segregated Black schools, Wells started to write editorials about the deplorable conditions in the schools. Initially, she was afraid to write under her own name and used a pen name, Iola. Her editorials and articles were well received and she continued to write more and more, all the while maintaining her teaching career. But eventually it was discovered that she was Iola and she was fired from her teaching post.
Ida B. Wells, Journalist
With teaching no longer an option, Wells leaned into her journalism career, determined to use the press to advocate for the rights of Black people. By 1889 she owned her own newspaper in Memphis called, The Free Speech and Headlight. As editor and co-owner of The Free Speech, Wells was able to write about all of the racism and injustice she witnessed around Memphis and her role as journalist really took off.
Anti-Lynching Crusade
In 1892 three Black business men were lynched in Memphis. One of them was Wells’ good friend. All of them were innocent of any crime, except the crime of owning a grocery store that was pulling customers away from the white grocery stores. The lynching was horrific – as were all lynchings – and it galvanized Wells to focus her attention on bringing awareness to the lynchings taking place all over the south.
Mainstream newspapers weren’t covering these barbaric acts of domestic terrorism, and if they were, they characterized the lynchings as deserved punishments for criminal acts. At her own peril, Wells travelled all over the south to gather information about the lynchings that were taking place to prove with facts who was being lynched and why. Overwhelmingly the lynchings could be placed in one of two categories; white mobs terrorizing Black communities so that they wouldn’t prove to be financially competitive with whites; and/or white men punishing a Black man for being in a consensual relationship with a white woman. That relationship had to be characterized as a rape to “protect the virtue of the white woman.” Wells published several articles, pamphlets and documents covering every single detail and eye-witness accounts of what was really happening in the American south.
Like Frederick Douglass, Wells also went on national and international speaking tours to bring attention to the lynchings taking place in the United States. Luckily, Wells was traveling when an angry white mob, who didn’t like her politics, attacked the offices of her newspaper and burned the whole thing down. Wells was warned that if she ever returned to Memphis she would be killed. So, she was forced to stay away for more than two decades! But that didn’t stop her or her crusade for justice.
Activist & Active
Ida B. Wells has so many accolades it is impossible to get them all down in one single blog post. Once she relocated to Chicago, Wells continued working as a journalist and activist. She married a fellow journalist and activist, Ferdinand Barnett but rather than take his name, Wells hyphenated her name and was known as Ida B. Wells-Barnett. Yes, she was a feminist too.
Wells had four children, two step-children and welcomed her role as mother and wife. But she never stopped working for the issues she believed in, like women’s suffrage, civil rights and anti-lynching. She was one of the original founders of the NAACP, and the National Association of Colored Women. Wells was considered radical in her thinking by other Black people and, of course many whites, but she never backed down from her beliefs that all people should have equal access to liberty and freedom.
My favorite quote of Wells, sums up her approach to life.
“I felt that one had better die fighting against injustice than to die like a dog or a rat in a trap.”
Even After Death, Ida B. Wells Continues to Inspire Journalists
Clearly this blog post only scratches the surface of Ida B. Wells’ amazing life and contribution to journalism and activism. There are some great articles you can read for more information, like this one in The Guardian, or for a more in-depth exploration of this woman’s life, read this well-researched and compelling biography by Mia Bey, To Tell the Truth Freely.
Just do me a favor and don’t forget her name.
Peace!
UPDATE:There has been a lot of attention paid to Ida B. Wells since this post was originally written. Wells won the Pulitzer Prize in 2020. There have been a bunch of new books written about her, including one by her great granddaughter, Michelle Duster. And of course in 2022, Mattel introduced the Ida B. Wells Barbie. I’m not ashamed to say, I plan to get one as soon as I can figure out how to get it shipped to me in Spain!
