Ida B Wells
By
John C Abercrombie
Ida B Wells is a true champion of the Civil Rights of Black people. A journalist who wrote a story that was seldom spoken, but so vital to the understanding of the struggle for equality. A story which deserves study.
Ida Bell Wells was born July 16, 1862 as the oldest child of James and Elizabeth “Lizzie” Warrenton Wells. James (Ida’s father) was the son of his White owner and a slave named Peggy. James, Ida’s father was a carpenter who was hired out.
Ida’s mother Lizzie did not know her family as she was sold away from the family of her birth. Despite extensive efforts to locate them after the Civil War, she was unsuccessful. This is a sad but all to often true reality of the treatment of slaves and their families.
Because Blacks were so often denied the opportunity to learn to read and write, education was highly valued by Blacks in the postbellum (after the war) South. James Wells, being a skilled craftsman was able to take advantage of some opportunities not available to other slaves. After slavery, he founded a successful carpentry business in Holly Springs and Lizzie was a well known “famous cook”.
James became a trustee of what at the time was called Shaw College, founded in 1868, in Holly Springs, Mississippi.
Note: Shaw University, Holly Springs, Mississippi, is not to be Confused with Shaw University in Raleigh, North Carolina. In fact, to avoid confusion the Mississippi school changed its name in 1892 to Rust College and is one of only 10 historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) founded before 1868 still operating today. Ida attended Rust College.
In 1878 both of her parents and a sibling died of Yellow Fever. Ida had been visiting her grandmother and was spared. In the aftermath to avoid the family being split, Ida, having attended Rust at an early age assumed responsibility of the family and found work as a teacher at a Black elementary school in Holly Springs. Peggy Wells, Ida’s paternal grandmother took care of the siblings while Ida was teaching.
With a great desire for education, Wells attended Fisk University, Nashville and Lemoyne College, now Lemoyne-Owen College in Memphis during the summer.
After the war, many Blacks enjoyed the privileges of citizenship, however states began to impose state laws which greatly changed this. May 4, 1884 while riding on a first-class seat in the lady’s car on the Chesapeake & Ohio Railroad, she was ordered to give up the seat she had paid for and move to the smoking car. The lady’s car was more spacious and comfortable; besides, the smoking car was crowded and smoke filled. She was being ordered to move because of the color of her skin.
Wells refused and the conductor physically attempted to move her. Although only 5 feet in height, it took 3 people to move her. She quite forcibly bit the conductor and as she was being removed the remain ladies cheered!
Wells gained publicity when she wrote a newspaper article about her treatment on the train. She sued and won. The railroad appealed and the Supreme Court had ruled against the Civil Rights Act of 1875 which banned racial discrimination in public accommodations.
To add insult to injury, Wells was ordered to pay court costs. Her reaction to the court’s decision showed her strong conviction on civil rights and religious faith as she said “I felt so disappointed because I had hoped such great things from my suit for my people. O God, is there no … justice in this land for us?”
Wells continued to teach but began writing weekly articles for The Living Way, a weekly newspaper under the pen name of Lola. In 1889, she became editor and co-owner of The Free Speech and Headlight
In 1891 she was fired by the Memphis Board of Education because her articles spoke about the deplorable conditions of Black schools. She then concentrated her energy on writing.
In 1889 a Black grocery store named Peoples Grocery, owned by Thomas Moss opened in South Memphis, it was very successful and was located near a White grocery store operated by William Barrett.
March 2, 1892, two boys, one Black and one White were playing marbles when the boys got into an argument and a fight ensued. As the Black kid began to win the fight, his father, Barrett, intervened and began to beat the Black kid. When the People’s Grocery employees, William Stewart and Calvin McDowell saw the adult beating the kid, they ran to his aid. Other neighbors gathered and what ensued was described as a “racially charged mob.”
The next day Barrett went back to the Peoples Grocery with the Shelby County Sheriff’s Deputy looking for Stewart. When McDowell said that Stewart was not there, Barrett exclaimed that “Blacks were thieves” and hit McDowell with a pistol. McDowell took the gun away and shot at Barrett with it.
March 5, 6 White men including a sheriff’s deputy went back to the store in civilian clothes and were met by bullets. The deputy Charley Cole was wounded. Hundreds of Whites were deputized after the incident. The 3 Black men were arrested.
March 9, about 2:30 a.m. 75 men wearing black masks took Moss, McDowell and Stewart from their jail cells lynched them and then filled the bodies with bullets.
Wells wrote editorials urging Blacks to move West and attracted almost 6,000 to do so. The economic impact on the town was obvious.
This event led Wells to start investigating Lynchings that were happening with all too much regularity in the South. She used investigative journalist techniques, interviewing people. In Tunica, Mississippi she investigated a case where the father of a young White woman had gotten a lynch mob to kill a Black man whom her daughter was sleeping with “to save the reputation of his daughter.”
May 1892, Wells published an editorial calling attention to what she called “That old threadbare lie that Negro men rape White women. If Southern men are not careful, a conclusion might be reached which will b e very damaging to the moral reputation of their women.” Following this editorial, her newspaper office was burned to the ground, a price put on her head and she never returned to Memphis again.
Wells published her research on lynching in a pamphlet “Southern Horrors: Lynch Law in All Its Phases.” She examined many accounts of Lynchings due to the allegation “rape of White women”. Her conclusion was that Southerners cried rape as a way to hide their real reason for the Lynchings: Black economic progress which threatened White Southerners with competition and White ideas enforcing Black second-class status in society.
Many states followed the lead of Mississippi which passed laws to disenfranchise Blacks and poor Whites using poll taxes, literacy tests.
In 1895, she published The Red Record, a 100-page pamphlet which described Lynchings in the United States that occurred since the signing of the Emancipation Proclamation of 1863. That pamphlet looked at the high rate of lynching in the United States.
Prior to publication of The Red Record, most Americans outside the South and those in other countries were unaware of the growing violence against Blacks in the South. During slavery, these attacks did not happen because of the economic value of the slaves. To the slave owner, it was an economic loss because he/she lost a source of income by way of the loss of free labor. Under the law, it was more like theft, taking property from its owner.
Thousands of Negroes were killed in cold blood even for the slightest transgression. Failing to step off the sidewalk and into the muddy street when passing a White person, failing to tip one’s hat, or the mere accusation of a crime. Public Lynchings were attended by thousands of people, many of them families with young boys and girls in attendance. There people were publicly hanged and tortured. Entire industries were formed to sell body parts cut from victims, or sell souvenirs such as post cards with pictures of the victims.
While we claim to be a nation of laws, provide fair and equal treatment of all people, we find that this does not apply to Blacks. Ida B Wells published the facts and was heard by those with a conscience.
Some of the conclusions of Wells work are
• White people acted to control and suppress Blacks by violence
• White people lynched Black people to suppress political activity and re-establish White supremacy.
• White people assumed any relationship of a White woman with a Black man was the result of rape, however, it was much more common for White men to take sexual advantage of Black women.
She provided valid statistics related to the many Lynchings committed from 1892 to 1895 and included graphic details on specific Lynchings. This data was taken from articles of White correspondents, White Press bureaus and White newspapers thus verifying them in the mind of skeptics.
Wells 2 pamphlets Southern Horrors: Lynch law in All Its Phases and The Red Record grabbed the attention of those not familiar with these horrific Lynching events. This included those who had before accepted the usual explanation and assumed that “these people” deserved their fate. Even without evidence or a trial.
She exposed how Southern states and their all-White, All-Male juries refused to indict any perpetrators. Law enforcement officers failed to act even in the face of photographs documenting the events, and people involved. Official reports of the events, if there were any, always concluded that these brutal acts were committed “by the hand or hands of person or persons unknown”
In 1893 and 1894 Wells traveled to England in her campaign against lynching to reach a larger and more sympathetic audience than she was able to reach in America. The British were shocked by the reports.
In 1895, Wells married the prominent attorney Ferdinand L Barnett. Barnett was also a journalist in Chicago. They shared many of the same passions about civil rights. Barnett had spoken widely against Lynchings and civil rights.
They met in 1893 while working on a pamphlet protesting the lack of Black representation at the World’s Columbian Exposition in Chicago. Barnett was the founder of the Chicago Conservator, the first Black newspaper in Chicago. Wells became a part owner of the newspaper and after marrying Barnett, assumed the role of editor.
Wells, Frederick Douglass and other Black leaders organized a boycott of the World’s Columbian Exposition because Blacks were excluded from the exhibits, writing a pamphlet “The Reason Why: The Colored American is Not in the World’s Columbian Exposition.” Over 20,000 copies were passed out at the Exposition.
She was also strongly linked to the Suffrage movement. She saw it as a way for Black women to become politically involved, however, suffragettes did not always believe in the causes of Blacks.
As more people have become familiar with the work of Ida B Wells, she has received many honors. The Ida B Wells Memorial Foundation and the Ida B Wells Museum have been established to protect, preserve and promote her legacy. Her hometown of Holly Springs, Mississippi has an Ida B Wells-Barnett Museum in her honor. It is a cultural center for African-American History.
Too few people are familiar with Ida B Wells, her work, her character and her devotion to her causes.
Your support is very important to us. Clicking the books and special offers takes you to Amazon a great place to shop. Here you can see star ratings of the books and even sample them. The links can be used for other items as well. Using our links helps support our work without cost to you and we thank you for using our links.
To see the full listing of posts, click on our Blog list
For Black History Month 2020, we posted daily. These posts focus on the reality of Black life in America after the Civil War culminating in the landmark Brown v Board of Education that changed so many of the earlier practices. To see the posts, click here
For Black History Month 2021, we focused on Black Medical Achievements, Inventors and Scientists’ see those posts, click here.
For Black History Month 2022 we posted a series on “Health and Wellness.” To see this series, click on this link.
This post is a part of a series on Black women we should all know. To see these posts, click here.
We also posted a 5 part mini-series on the 100th anniversary of one of the most horrific massacres in the history of America. Hundreds of Blacks were slaughtered and 10,000 left homeless in this largely unknown event. To see the posts, click here.
To comment or make suggestions on future posts, use Contact Us We encourage you to share the site on social media.
Use our links to Amazon anytime you shop Amazon. We receive a small royalty without cost to you. Using our link anytime you shop a partner, such as Amazon allows you to support us without cost to you. Any link takes you to the partner, shop as always and we both benefit. Thank you for your support.
Continue to scroll for fascinating Videos and Books to enhance your learning experience.
Continue scrolling down for more amazing information, videos, books and value items. We post weekly!
**
I’ve Done my Work:
Ida B. Wells and The Women Pushing Back Today – Dr. Paula J Geddings
**
How To Write a Book
**
You have seen Author Dr. Paul J Geddings on video – here is her book
A Sword Among Lions
**
Ida B Wells Barbie
**
Lynch law and all its Phases
**
Books for Black Children
ABH – Books for Black Children
**
The Light of Truth:
Writings of an Anti-Lynching Crusader. Crusade for Justice: The Autobiography Of Ida B. Wells (Negro American Biographies and Autobiographies)
**
Best Selling Black Authors
ABH – Best Selling Black Authors
**
Ida B. Wells: Southern Lynch Law in All Its Phases (audiobook)
**
Video Making Software
**
Southern Horrors:
Lynch Law in All Its Phases The epidemic of lynching that gripped the American South in the decades after the Civil War and the end of slavery has been glossed over and understated in many history books. Activist Ida B. Wells took it upon herself to document this shameful practice and its prevalence
**
Gift Cards
**
In the curve
**
Best Selling Black Women Authors
ABH – Black Women Best Selling Authors
**
The Light of Truth: Writings of an Anti-Lynching Crusader
**
Video Cameras
**
Ida B Wells –
the first Black female investigative reporter – hear the words of her grandson
**
Valentine Day Gifts
**
The Life of Ida B. Wells
**
Plants and Flowers
**
Before Rosa Parks, there was Ida B Wells
**
Soul Food Seasoning
**
Healthy Food
**
The following video is great for kids.
**
Seafood
**
How one journalist risked her life to hold murderers accountable – Christina Greer
In the late 1800’s, lynchings were happening all over the American South, often without any investigation or consequences for the murderers. A young journalist set out to expose the truth about these killings. Her reports shocked the nation, launched her journalism career and a lifelong pursuit of civil rights. Christina Greer details the life of Ida B. Wells and her tireless struggle for justice.
**
Steak
**
Anti-Lynching
**
There is a new Barbie on the market honoring Ida B Wells and my comment is “It’s about time” to honor important people in our history. They inspire not only Blacks, but all people. Many have grown up with the mistaken notion that Blacks don’t exist and have not contributed to society. Of course, we know that is not true and it is about time to increase our knowledge and inspire others to make significant contributions because they have been inspired.