Wells was willing to risk her life for what she believed in. Her motto was, “One had better die fighting against injustice than die like a dog or a rat in a trap.” Indeed, Wells’ life was put at risk many times by mobs who stormed her office, destroyed her equipment, and sent her death threats.
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How did Ida B. Wells change society?
Wells established the first black kindergarten, organized black women, and helped elect the city's first black alderman, just a few of her many achievements. The work she did paved the way for generations of black politicians, activists, and community leaders.
What did Ida B. Wells argue?
She asserted that lynching was “that last relic of barbarism and slavery.” Ida B. Wells' pamphlets, including this one, helped alert the public to the rampant lynching of African Americans in the South.
What did Ida B. Wells do for segregation?
She continued her anti-lynching campaign and began to work tirelessly against segregation and for women's suffrage. She helped block the establishment of segregated schools in Chicago.
What did Ida B. Wells campaign for?
Wells resolved to document the lynchings in the South, and to speak out in hopes of ending the practice. She began advocating for the Black citizens of Memphis to move to the West, and she urged boycotts of segregated streetcars. By challenging the white power structure, she became a target.
What was Ida B. Wells speech about?
In May she wrote a "Free Speech" editorial, in which she suggested that many rape charges arose from the discovery of voluntary sexual liaisons of white women with Black men. While Wells was away, angry whites closed the newspaper office and ran her partner out of Memphis.
What inspired Ida B. Wells?
After the lynching of one of her friends, Wells-Barnett turned her attention to white mob violence. She became skeptical about the reasons black men were lynched and set out to investigate several cases. She published her findings in a pamphlet and wrote several columns in local newspapers.
How did Ida B. Wells advocate for equality?
She continued her anti-lynching campaign and began to work tirelessly against segregation and for women's suffrage. She helped block the establishment of segregated schools in Chicago.
Who believed education was meaningless without equality?
W.E.B. Du BoisW.E.B. Du Bois believed that education was meaningless without equality. He supported political equality for African Americans by helping to form the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) in 1909.
Which of the following arguments did Ida B. Wells make about lynching?
Wells (1893). Which of the following arguments did Ida B. Wells make about lynching in nineteenth -century America ? Lawlessness permeated the nation, allowing for lynching.
What did Ida B. Wells do for civil rights?
In Chicago, Ida Wells first attacked the exclusion of Black people from the Chicago World's Fair, writing a pamphlet sponsored by Frederick Douglas and others. She continued her anti-lynching campaign and began to work tirelessly against segregation and for women's suffrage.
Who Was Ida B. Wells?
Ida B. Wells was an African American journalist, abolitionist and feminist who led an anti-lynching crusade in the United States in the 1890s. She went on to found and become integral in groups striving for African American justice.
Where was Ida Wells born?
Ida B. Wells was one of the first American women to continue to keep her last name after her marriage. Education. Fisk University, Rust University. Place of Birth. Holly Springs, Mississippi. Place of Death. Chicago, Illinois. Full Name. Ida Bell Wells.
How long did it take for the Wells family to be freed?
The Wells family, as well as the rest of the enslaved people of the Confederate states, were decreed free by the Union thanks to the Emancipation Proclamation about six months after Ida's birth.
What was the name of the organization that Wells attended?
After brutal assaults on the African American community in Springfield, Illinois, in 1908, Wells sought to take action: The following year, she attended a special conference for the organization that would later become known as the NAACP. Wells later cut ties with the organization, explaining that she felt the organization, in its infancy at the time she left, lacked action-based initiatives.
How did Wells die?
Wells died of kidney disease on March 25, 1931, at the age of 68, in Chicago, Illinois.
What party was Wells' father in?
Wells' parents were active in the Republican Party during Reconstruction. Her father, James, was involved with the Freedman’s Aid Society and helped start Shaw University, a school for the newly freed enslaved people (now Rust College), and served on the first board of trustees.
What happened to Moss and the others?
One night, Moss and the others guarded their store against attack and ended up shooting several of the white vandals. They were arrested and brought to jail, but they didn't have a chance to defend themselves against the charges. A lynch mob took them from their cells and murdered them.
Where was Ida Wells exiled from?
Ida had been working closely with a number of the Illinois women for nearly two decades. Before settling in Chicago, she was an exile from her home of Memphis, Tennessee, where she had launched the nation’s first antilynching campaign. After her tour across the U.S.
What was the goal of Ida?
Ida’s immediate goal was to make African-American women a force in electoral politics—beginning with Chicago’s deteriorating Second Ward where she and a burgeoning black population resided.
What did Wells Barnett know about the segregation of black marchers?
Wells-Barnett might have known about the reports of a debate among the protest organizers regarding the segregation of black marchers in Washington. She certainly knew that over the decade, NAWSA, in its strategy to gain support in the South, had appeared to capitulate to its white southern members and legislators like South Carolina Senator Ben Tillman who complained that the enfranchisement of black women would reinvigorate the resistance against white supremacy. In 1894, Ida, a guest in Susan B. Anthony’s Rochester home, had debated the pioneer suffragist about keeping African-American women at bay in the name of “expediency.” Ida’s retort that the strategy would only “confirm white women’s segregationist views” was borne out nine years later when black NAWSA members were banned from the organization’s national meeting in New Orleans. Ominously, some NAWSA leaders were now assuring white Southerners that the way to sustain white supremacy was to enfranchise educated white women—raising the specter of NAWSA’s willingness to pursue suffrage for white women only.
What was Ida's first black suffrage club?
She was there representing the Alpha Suffrage Club (ASC)-- which she had founded as the first black suffrage club in Chicago just two months before. Ida planned to march with the women in what promised to be a parade of unprecedented scale and significance.
What was the role of Wells Barnett in the National Association of Colored Women?
Wells-Barnett was also active in the National Association of Colored Women (NACW) which she helped found, with its Suffrage Department and 100,000- membership in Illinois and across the country.
When did Ida Wells and the Alpha Suffrage Club march?
Ida B. Wells and the Alpha Suffrage Club marching. From the Chicago Daily Tribune, March 5, 1913.
What was the significance of the 1913 Women's March?
While the women were rehearsing in Washington on the eve of the march in 1913, they got word that the national organizers advised them that their contingent was to be “entirely white;” black women were to march at the tail-end of the parade. In light of the past, this moment could be a historic inflection point.
Where was Ida Wells born?
Early Life. Ida B. Wells was enslaved from her birth on July 16, 1862, in Holly Springs, Mississippi. She was the eldest of eight children. Following the end of the Civil War, her father, who as an enslaved person had been the carpenter on a plantation, was active in Reconstruction period politics in Mississippi.
Where did Ida live when her parents died?
When Ida was young she was educated in a local school, though her education was interrupted when both her parents died in a yellow fever epidemic when she was 16. She had to take care of her siblings, and she moved with them to Memphis, Tennessee, to live with an aunt.
What did Wells do to end the lynchings?
Wells resolved to document the lynchings in the South, and to speak out in hopes of ending the practice. She began advocating for the Black citizens of Memphis to move to the West, and she urged boycotts of segregated streetcars.
Who was the African American journalist who documented the practice of lynching black people?
Robert McNamara. Updated July 30, 2020. African American journalist Ida B. Wells went to heroic lengths in the late 1890s to document the horrifying practice of lynching Black people. Her groundbreaking work, which included collecting statistics in a practice that today is called "data journalism," established that the lawless killing ...
How old was Ida Wells when she moved to Chicago?
When Ida B. Wells moved to Chicago at the age of 32, she was already a world-renowned anti-lynching crusader, civil rights activist and investigative journalist.
What did Wells say about women's suffrage?
Early in the movement for women's suffrage, Wells recognized that black women were not taking advantage of their limited voting rights and that the suffrage movement itself was not inclusive.
What was the solution of Wells?
Wells' solution was to create a new kindergarten in a black church. She mobilized the members of a local women's civic club to create a new kindergarten in a black church.
Why did women march in Washington?
In March of 1913, more than 5,000 women marched in Washington to fight for the right to vote. Wells and other African-American women were told they would be segregated from the main group. But Wells refused, and waited until the procession started before joining the block of women from Illinois.
Who believed this type of political progress was possible in Chicago?
Wells believed this type of political progress was possible in Chicago.
Did the YMCA welcome black men?
But when they sought support finding housing and other resources, many white institutions turned them away. "The YMCA, the Young Men's Christian Association, did not welcome black men," says Michelle Duster, an author, educator and great-granddaughter of Ida B. Wells.
Did the Wells movement continue?
Today, though black Chicagoans still suffer from many inequities in housing, economic opportunity, and education, the movement that Wells launched continues. And many victories have been realized.
Where did Wells go to live?
These conclusions incited a riot while Wells was in Philadelphia. It was too dangerous for her to return to Memphis, so she decided to stay in the north. Over the next several years, she traveled widely in the United States and Europe to talk about lynching. It was in Chicago, though, that she found her new home.
Why did Wells leave Memphis?
In 1892, Wells had left Memphis to attend a conference in Philadelphia, when the office of the newspaper she co-owned was destroyed and her co-editor was run out of town. “As a result of the editorial, Memphis has just exploded,” says Paula J. Giddings, a professor emerita of Africana studies at Smith College and author of Ida: A Sword Among Lions. ...
What did Wells conclude about lynching?
Using statistics and quantitative data, Wells concluded that “this idea of rape and even criminal behavior is not so much connected to lynching, but that lynching was a means to keep blacks—who were very economically competitive at this point—to keep blacks down, ” Giddings says.
What did Giddings do after the murder of Moss?
But the murder of her friend Moss prompted her to focus her reporting on lynchings. “This begins kind of a new phase of her work in that she becomes a investigative journalist,” Giddings says.
How much did Wells Barnett raise to erect a monument in Chicago?
In July 2018, Chicago named a street after her. That same month, activists raised $300,000 to erect a monument to Wells-Barnett, who remained politically active in Chicago until she died in 1931.
Where did Wells go to talk about lynching?
Over the next several years, she traveled widely in the United States and Europe to talk about lynching. It was in Chicago, though, that she found her new home.
Why did the train conductor kick her out of the first class ladies car?
Several years before, a train conductor had kicked her out of the first-class ladies’ car after she refused to move to a segregated carriage. She sued the railroad for segregating its cars, won $500 in a local court (whose ruling the Supreme Court later overturned) and began writing newspaper columns about her lawsuit.
Who Was Ida B. Wells?
Early Life, Family and Education
- Born an enslaved person in Holly Springs, Mississippi, on July 16, 1862, Wells was the oldest daughter of James and Lizzie Wells. The Wells family, as well as the rest of the enslaved people of the Confederate states, were decreed free by the Union thanks to the Emancipation Proclamationabout six months after Ida's birth. Living in Mississippi as African Americans, they f…
Civil Rights Journalist and Activist
- Wells wrote about issues of race and politics in the South. A number of her articles were published in Black newspapers and periodicals under the moniker "Iola." Wells eventually became an owner of the Memphis Free Speech and Headlight, and, later, of the Free Speech. On one fateful train ride from Memphis to Nashville, in May 1884, Wells reached a...
Anti-Lynching Activist
- A lynching in Memphis incensed Wells and led her to begin an anti-lynching campaign in 1892. Three African American men — Tom Moss, Calvin McDowell and Will Stewart — set up a grocery store. Their new business drew customers away from a white-owned store in the neighborhood, and the white store owner and his supporters clashed with the three men on a few occasions. O…
'A Red Record'
- In 1893, Wells published A Red Record, a personal examination of lynchings in America. That year, Wells lectured abroad to drum up support for her cause among reform-minded white people. Upset by the ban on African American exhibitors at the 1893 World's Columbian Exposition, she penned and circulated a pamphlet entitled "The Reason Why the Colored Ameri…
Husband and Children
- Wells married Ferdinand Barnett in 1895 and was thereafter known as Ida B. Wells-Barnett. The couple had four children together.
NAACP Co-Founder
- Wells established several civil rights organizations. In 1896, she formed the National Association of Colored Women. Wells is also considered a founding member of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP). NAACP co-founders included W.E.B. Du Bois, Archibald Grimke, Mary Church Terrell, Mary White Ovington and Henry Moskowitz, among othe…
Death
- Wells died of kidney disease on March 25, 1931, at the age of 68, in Chicago, Illinois. Wells left behind an impressive legacy of social and political heroism. With her writings, speeches and protests, Wells fought against prejudice, no matter what potential dangers she faced. She once said, "I felt that one had better die fighting against injustice than to die like a dog or a rat in a trap."