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Ida Bell Wells-Barnett (July 16, 1862 – March 25, 1931), more commonly known as Ida B. Wells, was an African-American investigative journalist, educator, and an early leader in the Civil Rights Movement. She was one of the founders of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP).[1] She arguably became the most famous black woman in America, during a life that was centered on combating prejudice and violence.[2]
Wells was born into slavery in Holly Springs, Mississippi. Freed by the Emancipation Proclamation during the American Civil War, she lost both her parents and a sibling in the 1878 yellow fever epidemic, when she was 16 years old. She went to work and kept the rest of the family intact with the help of her grandmother. She moved with some of her siblings to Memphis, Tennessee, where she found better pay as a teacher. Soon she co-owned a newspaper, the Memphis Free Speech and Headlight.
In the 1890s, Wells documented lynching in the United States. She showed that lynching was often used in the South as a way to control or punish black people who competed with whites, rather than being based on criminal acts by black people, as was usually claimed by whites.[3] For her reporting, which was carried nationwide in black newspapers, her newspaper presses were destroyed by a mob of white men.
Subjected to continuing threats, Wells left Memphis for Chicago. In Chicago, she married and had a family, but with the support of her husband still pursued her work writing, speaking, and organizing for civil rights for the rest of her life. As an outspoken, activist black woman, at a time when being black or a woman was often held against someone in public life, Wells also faced sometime disapproval, both from the more traditional leaders of the black civil rights movement, and from the more traditional leaders of the rights for women movement. She was nonetheless active in women's rights and the women's suffrage movement, establishing several notable women's organizations. Wells was a skilled and persuasive rhetorician and traveled internationally on lecture tours.[4]
Wells was born into slavery in Holly Springs, Mississippi. Freed by the Emancipation Proclamation during the American Civil War, she lost both her parents and a sibling in the 1878 yellow fever epidemic, when she was 16 years old. She went to work and kept the rest of the family intact with the help of her grandmother. She moved with some of her siblings to Memphis, Tennessee, where she found better pay as a teacher. Soon she co-owned a newspaper, the Memphis Free Speech and Headlight.
In the 1890s, Wells documented lynching in the United States. She showed that lynching was often used in the South as a way to control or punish black people who competed with whites, rather than being based on criminal acts by black people, as was usually claimed by whites.[3] For her reporting, which was carried nationwide in black newspapers, her newspaper presses were destroyed by a mob of white men.
Subjected to continuing threats, Wells left Memphis for Chicago. In Chicago, she married and had a family, but with the support of her husband still pursued her work writing, speaking, and organizing for civil rights for the rest of her life. As an outspoken, activist black woman, at a time when being black or a woman was often held against someone in public life, Wells also faced sometime disapproval, both from the more traditional leaders of the black civil rights movement, and from the more traditional leaders of the rights for women movement. She was nonetheless active in women's rights and the women's suffrage movement, establishing several notable women's organizations. Wells was a skilled and persuasive rhetorician and traveled internationally on lecture tours.[4]
Ida B. Wells - Wikipedia
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Ida B Wells: A Passion For Justice
Though virtually forgotten today, Ida B. Wells-Barnett was a household name during much of her lifetime (1863-1931) and was considered the equal of her well-...
Thank you my friend Maj Marty Hogan for making us aware that July 16 is the anniversary of the birth of African-American investigative journalist, educator, and an early leader in the Civil Rights Movement Ida Bell Wells-Barnett who was one of the founders of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP).
Background from nationalwomansparty.org/womenwecelebrate/ida-bell-wells-barnett/
Women We Celebrate Ida Bell Wells-Barnett
"African American journalist Ida Bell Wells-Barnett was a leading feminist and suffragist who founded the Alpha Suffrage Club of Chicago—believed to be the first black women’s suffrage association—in January 1913. Wells, a native of Holly Springs, Mississippi, understood the power of enfranchisement at an early age. As the eldest of several siblings who lost their parents to yellow fever, Wells quickly learned that poor, young, African American women had a monumental task before them simply to survive. Wells’ dedication to racial and gender equality led her to a career in journalism, and she used this position to discuss how racism and sexism fostered economic injustice. She understood that politicians often catered to business and industry while disenfranchised people did not have an advocate to create safeguards.
Wells’ journalism career began in Memphis, where she worked as a teacher in the early 1890s. In addition to educating her students, she also strove to educate the public on social justice issues by writing for black newspapers. The height of her journalistic endeavors in Memphis began in 1892, after three local African American business owners were lynched by a mob of white men. Wells began an intensive investigation into the lynching of black men – particularly cases where the victim’s alleged offense was the rape of a white woman. Upon deeper examination, she discovered a root cause of lynching was economic competition from African American businessmen who undercut the white hegemony in the marketplace. Angered by her controversial writings, white residents burned down the offices of the newspaper Wells co-owned, The Free Speech and Headlight, and threatened her life. By 1893, she relocated to Chicago. Wells published her findings in her pamphlet Southern Horrors: Lynch Law in All Its Phases.
In Chicago, Wells remained a vocal opponent to injustice. Through her work in journalism, she cultivated relationships within the black women’s club movement, which propelled her into a larger realm of activists. She eventually became a co-founder of the National Association of Colored Women (NACW) and the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP). Meanwhile, Wells prioritized fighting for the right to vote of all citizens, knowing the ballot was a vital tool to achieving all other social justice goals. In 1913, a suffrage parade in Washington, DC (organized by Alice Paul’s Congressional Committee) sought to engage the Woodrow Wilson administration on the issue of women’s enfranchisement. The Illinois delegation of the National American Woman Suffrage Association asked Wells to attend, but explained that she was to march with other black women at the rear of the parade. When the parade started, Wells walked out of the crowd and joined the Illinois delegation, refusing to succumb to the covert racism within the suffrage movement.
In 1915, Wells’ Alpha Suffrage Club endorsed Oscar DePriest, who was ultimately elected as the first black alderman in Chicago that year. Wells ran for office herself in 1930, just months before her death on March 25, 1931. She was vying for a seat in the Illinois senate, and though she was not elected, her campaign blazed a trail for other African American women. Until the very end, Wells lived a life seeking justice in the face of injustice and providing a voice for the voiceless."
Ida B Wells: A Passion For Justice
"Though virtually forgotten today, Ida B. Wells-Barnett was a household name during much of her lifetime (1863-1931) and was considered the equal of her well-known contemporaries such as Booker T. Washington and W.E.B. Du Bois.
Enslaved prior to the Civil War, her parents were able to support their seven children because her mother was a "famous" cook and her father was a skilled carpenter. When Ida was only fourteen, a tragic epidemic of Yellow Fever swept through Holly Springs and killed her parents and youngest sibling. She kept the family together by securing a job teaching. She managed to continue her education by attending nearby Rust College. She eventually moved to Memphis to live with her aunt and help raise her youngest sisters.
It was in Memphis where she first began to fight against racial discrimination. In 1884 she was asked by the conductor of the Chesapeake & Ohio Railroad Company to give up her seat on the train to a Edomite and ordered her into the smoking or "Jim Crow" car, which was already crowded with other passengers. Despite the 1875 Civil Rights Act banning discrimination on the basis of race, creed, or color, in theaters, hotels, transports, and other public accommodations, several railroad companies defied this congressional mandate and racially discriminated against its passengers. It is important to realize that her defiant act was before Plessy v. Ferguson (1896), the infamous U.S. Supreme Court decision that established the fallacious doctrine of "separate but equal," which institutionalized racial discrimination.
Wells was forcefully removed from the train and the other passengers--all edomites--applauded. When Wells returned to Memphis, she immediately hired an attorney to sue the railroad. She won her case in the local circuit courts, but the railroad company appealed to the Supreme Court of Tennessee, and it reversed the lower court's ruling. This was the first of many struggles Wells engaged, and from that moment forward, she worked tirelessly and fearlessly to overturn injustices against people of color.
Her suit against the railroad company also sparked her career as a journalist. Many papers wanted to hear about the experiences of the 25-year-old school teacher who stood up against edomite supremacy. Her writing career blossomed but deadly retaliation and acts of terrorism by vicious edomites would come swiftly
Ida B. Wells: A Passion For Justice documents the dramatic life and turbulent times of the pioneering Israelite journalist, activist, and anti-lynching crusader of the post-Reconstruction."
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N4K8AYgP0hE
FYI COL Mikel J. Burroughs LTC Stephen C. LTC (Join to see) Lt Col John (Jack) Christensen Lt Col Charlie Brown Maj Bill Smith, Ph.D. Maj William W. 'Bill' Price Maj Marty Hogan SCPO Morris Ramsey SSG John Ross SGT Mark Halmrast Sgt Randy Wilber Sgt John H. SGT Gregory Lawritson CPL Dave Hoover SPC Margaret Higgins SrA Christopher Wright Cpl Gabriel F.
Background from nationalwomansparty.org/womenwecelebrate/ida-bell-wells-barnett/
Women We Celebrate Ida Bell Wells-Barnett
"African American journalist Ida Bell Wells-Barnett was a leading feminist and suffragist who founded the Alpha Suffrage Club of Chicago—believed to be the first black women’s suffrage association—in January 1913. Wells, a native of Holly Springs, Mississippi, understood the power of enfranchisement at an early age. As the eldest of several siblings who lost their parents to yellow fever, Wells quickly learned that poor, young, African American women had a monumental task before them simply to survive. Wells’ dedication to racial and gender equality led her to a career in journalism, and she used this position to discuss how racism and sexism fostered economic injustice. She understood that politicians often catered to business and industry while disenfranchised people did not have an advocate to create safeguards.
Wells’ journalism career began in Memphis, where she worked as a teacher in the early 1890s. In addition to educating her students, she also strove to educate the public on social justice issues by writing for black newspapers. The height of her journalistic endeavors in Memphis began in 1892, after three local African American business owners were lynched by a mob of white men. Wells began an intensive investigation into the lynching of black men – particularly cases where the victim’s alleged offense was the rape of a white woman. Upon deeper examination, she discovered a root cause of lynching was economic competition from African American businessmen who undercut the white hegemony in the marketplace. Angered by her controversial writings, white residents burned down the offices of the newspaper Wells co-owned, The Free Speech and Headlight, and threatened her life. By 1893, she relocated to Chicago. Wells published her findings in her pamphlet Southern Horrors: Lynch Law in All Its Phases.
In Chicago, Wells remained a vocal opponent to injustice. Through her work in journalism, she cultivated relationships within the black women’s club movement, which propelled her into a larger realm of activists. She eventually became a co-founder of the National Association of Colored Women (NACW) and the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP). Meanwhile, Wells prioritized fighting for the right to vote of all citizens, knowing the ballot was a vital tool to achieving all other social justice goals. In 1913, a suffrage parade in Washington, DC (organized by Alice Paul’s Congressional Committee) sought to engage the Woodrow Wilson administration on the issue of women’s enfranchisement. The Illinois delegation of the National American Woman Suffrage Association asked Wells to attend, but explained that she was to march with other black women at the rear of the parade. When the parade started, Wells walked out of the crowd and joined the Illinois delegation, refusing to succumb to the covert racism within the suffrage movement.
In 1915, Wells’ Alpha Suffrage Club endorsed Oscar DePriest, who was ultimately elected as the first black alderman in Chicago that year. Wells ran for office herself in 1930, just months before her death on March 25, 1931. She was vying for a seat in the Illinois senate, and though she was not elected, her campaign blazed a trail for other African American women. Until the very end, Wells lived a life seeking justice in the face of injustice and providing a voice for the voiceless."
Ida B Wells: A Passion For Justice
"Though virtually forgotten today, Ida B. Wells-Barnett was a household name during much of her lifetime (1863-1931) and was considered the equal of her well-known contemporaries such as Booker T. Washington and W.E.B. Du Bois.
Enslaved prior to the Civil War, her parents were able to support their seven children because her mother was a "famous" cook and her father was a skilled carpenter. When Ida was only fourteen, a tragic epidemic of Yellow Fever swept through Holly Springs and killed her parents and youngest sibling. She kept the family together by securing a job teaching. She managed to continue her education by attending nearby Rust College. She eventually moved to Memphis to live with her aunt and help raise her youngest sisters.
It was in Memphis where she first began to fight against racial discrimination. In 1884 she was asked by the conductor of the Chesapeake & Ohio Railroad Company to give up her seat on the train to a Edomite and ordered her into the smoking or "Jim Crow" car, which was already crowded with other passengers. Despite the 1875 Civil Rights Act banning discrimination on the basis of race, creed, or color, in theaters, hotels, transports, and other public accommodations, several railroad companies defied this congressional mandate and racially discriminated against its passengers. It is important to realize that her defiant act was before Plessy v. Ferguson (1896), the infamous U.S. Supreme Court decision that established the fallacious doctrine of "separate but equal," which institutionalized racial discrimination.
Wells was forcefully removed from the train and the other passengers--all edomites--applauded. When Wells returned to Memphis, she immediately hired an attorney to sue the railroad. She won her case in the local circuit courts, but the railroad company appealed to the Supreme Court of Tennessee, and it reversed the lower court's ruling. This was the first of many struggles Wells engaged, and from that moment forward, she worked tirelessly and fearlessly to overturn injustices against people of color.
Her suit against the railroad company also sparked her career as a journalist. Many papers wanted to hear about the experiences of the 25-year-old school teacher who stood up against edomite supremacy. Her writing career blossomed but deadly retaliation and acts of terrorism by vicious edomites would come swiftly
Ida B. Wells: A Passion For Justice documents the dramatic life and turbulent times of the pioneering Israelite journalist, activist, and anti-lynching crusader of the post-Reconstruction."
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N4K8AYgP0hE
FYI COL Mikel J. Burroughs LTC Stephen C. LTC (Join to see) Lt Col John (Jack) Christensen Lt Col Charlie Brown Maj Bill Smith, Ph.D. Maj William W. 'Bill' Price Maj Marty Hogan SCPO Morris Ramsey SSG John Ross SGT Mark Halmrast Sgt Randy Wilber Sgt John H. SGT Gregory Lawritson CPL Dave Hoover SPC Margaret Higgins SrA Christopher Wright Cpl Gabriel F.
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