I didn’t know anything about Ida B. Wells until fairly recently, but as a former journalist, her story inspires me so much. Wells was an outspoken, African American, female journalist in the late 1800s and early 1900s, when those things just did not go together.
She faced racism and sexism but kept producing stories and publications that could not be ignored. Wells got so much attention for writing against lynching and other injustices in her Memphis newspaper that it was destroyed by a mob who were looking to kill her in 1892. Lucky for her — and us — she was out of town that night.
So she moved to Chicago, where she continued to stir up good trouble. She fought for civil rights and women’s rights, especially the right to vote, advocated for better schools, and continued to write. Her deeply researched books about lynching in the South included a wealth of statistics and first-hand accounts. She died in 1931 but was returned to the public eye when her daughter helped publish her autobiography in 1970.
Today, numerous journalism programs, schools, and public places are named for her all across the country. Wells earned a posthumous Pulitzer Prize in 2020 for her “outstanding and courageous” reporting about lynching. In February 2025, the Ida B. Wells quarter was released as part of the American Women Quarters program.
#Black History Month
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