Examine individual changes

'{{Infobox person | name = '''Ida Bell Wells-Barnett''' | image = File:Mary Garrity - Ida B. Wells-Barnett - Google Art Project - restoration crop.jpg | image_size = 189px | birth_date = {{Birth date|1862|07|16}} | birth_place = [[Holly Springs, Mississippi]], [[Confederate States of America|CSA]] | death_date = {{Death date and age|1931|03|25|1862|07|16}} | death_place = [[Chicago]], [[Illinois]] | education = Freedman's School, Rust College, Fisk University | occupation = Civil rights & Women's rights activist | spouse = Ferdinand L. Barnett | parents = James Wells and Elizabeth "Izzy Bell" Warrenton }} '''Ida Bell Wells-Barnett''' (July 16, 1862 – March 25, 1931) was an [[African-American]] [[journalist]], [[newspaper]] [[copy editing|editor]], [[suffragist]], [[sociologist]], and an early leader in the [[civil rights movement]]. She documented [[lynching in the United States]], showing how it was often a way to control or punish blacks who competed with whites, often under the guise of rape charges.<ref>"Ida B. Wells Speaks Out Against Lynching", in Susan Ware, ed. ''Modern American Women: a Documentary History''Italic text''''</ref> She was active in [[women's rights]] and the [[History of women's suffrage in the United States|women's suffrage movement]], establishing several notable women's organizations. Wells was a skilled and persuasive rhetorician, and traveled internationally on lecture tours.<ref name=UCLib>[http://ead.lib.uchicago.edu. Wells,Ida B. Papers, "Lynch Laws in All of Its Phases, Box 8, folder 8, Special collections Research Center, University of Chicago. Accessed 2 April 2011.]</ref> She Fought For Whats Right To Her People ==Early life and education== Ida Bell Wells was born a slave in [[Holly Springs, Mississippi]] in 1862,<ref name="WIH"/> just before [[President of the United States|President]] [[Abraham Lincoln]] issued the [[Emancipation Proclamation]]. Her father was James Wells and her mother was Elizabeth "Lizzie" Warrenton Wells. Both parents were [[Slavery in the United States|enslaved]] until freed under the Proclamation.<ref name=McBride>[http://www.webster.edu/~woolflm/idabwells.html Jennifer McBride, ''Ida B. Wells: Crusade for Justice'' (film)]{{dead link|date=June 2013}}, Webster University, Accessed April 31, 2011.</ref> Ida's father James was a master at carpentry and a "race man" who worked for the advancement of blacks. He was very interested in politics and was a member of the [[Loyal League]]. He attended Shaw University in Holly Springs (now [[Rust College]]) but dropped out to help his family. He also attended public speeches and campaigned for local black candidates, but never ran for office himself.<ref name=McBride/> Her mother Lizzie was a cook for the Bolling household before her death from [[yellow fever]]. She was a religious woman who was very strict with her children. Ida attended Shaw as well but was expelled for her rebellious behavior and temper after confronting the college president.{{Citation needed|date=September 2014}} While visiting her grandmother in the Mississippi Valley in 1878, Ida, then age 16, received word that Holly Springs had suffered a [[yellow fever]] [[epidemic]].<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.africawithin.com/bios/ida_wells.htm |title=Ida B. Wells-Barnett |publisher=Africa Within |accessdate=2010-06-22 }}</ref> Both her parents and her 10-month-old brother, Stanley, had died. ==Early career== Following the funerals, friends and relatives decided that the six remaining Wells children should be sent to various foster homes. Ida resisted this solution. To keep her younger siblings together as a family, she dropped out of Shaw and found work as a [[teacher]] in a black elementary school. Her paternal grandmother, Peggy Wells, along with other friends and relatives, stayed with her siblings and cared for them during the week while Ida was away teaching. Without this help, she would have not been able to keep her siblings together. She resented that white teachers were paid $80 a month when she was paid only $30 a month. This discrimination made her more interested in the politics of race and improving the education of blacks. In 1883, Ida B. Wells took three of her younger siblings to [[Memphis, Tennessee|Memphis]], Tennessee, to live with her aunt and to be closer to other family members. She also learned that she could earn higher wages there as a teacher. Soon after moving, she was hired in Woodstock for the [[Shelby County, Tennessee|Shelby County]] school system.<ref name="schechter">[http://www.ibiblio.org/uncpress/chapters/schechter_ida.html Patricia A. Schechter, ''Ida B. Wells-Barnett and American Reform, 1880-1930''], Accessed April 31, 2011.</ref> During her summer vacations she attended summer sessions at [[Fisk University]], a [[historically black college]] in [[Nashville, Tennessee|Nashville]]; its graduates were well respected in the black community. She also attended LeMoyne. She held strong political opinions and provoked many people with her views on women's rights.{{Citation needed|date=September 2014}} At 24, she wrote, "I will not begin at this late day by doing what my soul abhors; sugaring men, weak deceitful creatures, with flattery to retain them as escorts or to gratify a revenge."<ref>Bay, p. 67.</ref> On May 4, 1884, a [[Conductor (transportation)|train conductor]] with the Memphis & Charleston Railway ordered Wells to give up her seat in the first class ladies car and move to the smoking car, which was already crowded with other passengers. The year before, the [[Supreme Court]] had invalidated the federal [[Civil Rights Act of 1875]] (which had banned racial discrimination in public accommodations). This verdict allowed railroad companies to continue racial segregation of their passengers. Wells refused to give up her seat, 71 years before the activist [[Rosa Parks]] showed similar resistance on a bus. The conductor and two men dragged Wells out of the car. When she returned to Memphis, she hired an African-American attorney to sue the railroad. She also became a public figure in Memphis when she wrote a newspaper article for ''The Living Way'', a black church weekly, about her treatment on the train. When her lawyer was paid off by the railroad,<ref name=Fridan>Fridan, D, & Fridan, J. (2000). ''Ida B. Wells: mother of the civil rights movement''. New York: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, p. 21. ISBN 0-395-89898-6</ref> she hired a white attorney. She won her case on December 24, 1884, when the local circuit court granted her a $500 award. The railroad company appealed to the [[Tennessee Supreme Court]], which reversed the lower court's ruling in 1887. It concluded, "We think it is evident that the purpose of the defendant in error was to harass with a view to this suit, and that her persistence was not in good faith to obtain a comfortable seat for the short ride."<ref name=SWReporter>''Southwestern Reporter'', Volume 4, May 16-August 1, 1887</ref><ref>{{cite book|url=http://books.google.com/books?id=bBgLAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA5&lpg=PA5&dq=%22that+her+persistence+was+not+in+good+faith+to+obtain%22&source=bl&ots=B1WkhDyQgE&sig=jtbEDpJe93FEHpAmzMS_yoot_Eo&hl=en&sa=X&ei=o4kUT-K9MJDbiAK6yumlDQ&ved=0CCsQ6AEwAQ#v=onepage&q=%22that%20her%20persistence%20was%20not%20in%20good%20faith%20to%20obtain%22&f=false |title=The Southwestern reporter - West Publishing Company - Google Books |publisher=Books.google.com |date= |accessdate=2012-05-12}}</ref> Wells was ordered to pay court costs. While teaching [[elementary school]], Wells was offered an editorial position for the ''[[Washington Evening Star|Evening Star]]''. She also wrote weekly articles for ''The Living Way'' weekly newspaper under the [[pen name]] "Iola" and gained a reputation for writing about the race issue. In 1889, she became co-owner and editor of ''Free Speech and Headlight'', an anti-segregationist newspaper that was started by the Reverend Taylor Nightingale and was based at the [[Beale Street Baptist Church]] in Memphis. It published articles about racial injustice.<ref name="baker">[http://www.duke.edu/~ldbaker/classes/AAIH/caaih/ibwells/ibwbkgrd.html Lee D. Baker, "Ida B. Wells-Barnett and Her Passion for Justice"], Faculty webpage, Duke University, Accessed April 31, 2011</ref> In 1889 Thomas Moss, a friend of Ida B. Wells, opened the [[Peoples Grocery|People's Grocery]] in the "Curve", a neighborhood just outside the Memphis city limits. It did well and served as competition with a white-owned grocery store across the street. While Wells was out of town in [[Natchez, Mississippi]], a white mob invaded her friends' store. During the altercation, three white men were shot and injured. Moss, McDowell, and Stewart were arrested and jailed. A large [[Lynching in the United States|lynch mob]] stormed the jail and killed the three men. After the lynching of her friends, Wells wrote in ''Free Speech and Headlight'', urging blacks to leave Memphis: {{quote|There is, therefore, only one thing left to do; save our money and leave a town which will neither protect our lives and property, nor give us a [[fair trial]] in the courts, but takes us out and murders us in cold blood when accused by white persons.<ref name="Wells 63">Wells 63</ref>}} Wells emphasized the public spectacle of the lynching. Over 6,000 blacks did leave; others organized [[boycott]]s of white-owned businesses. After being threatened with violence, she bought a [[pistol]]. She later wrote, "They had made me an exile and threatened my life for hinting at the truth." ==Investigative journalism== The murder of her friends drove Wells to research and document lynchings and their causes. She began [[investigative journalism]], looking at the charges given for the murders, and officially started her anti-lynching campaign. She spoke on the issue at various black women’s clubs, and raised more than $500 to investigate lynchings and publish her results. Wells found that blacks were lynched for such reasons as failing to pay debts, not appearing to give way to whites, competing with whites economically, and being drunk in public. She published her findings in a pamphlet entitled "Southern Horrors: Lynch Law in All Its Phases."<ref name="Southern Horrors">[http://www.gutenberg.org/files/14975/14975-h/14975-h.htm ''Southern Horrors: Lynch Law in All Its Phases'']</ref> She wrote an article that suggested that, unlike the myth that white women were sexually at risk of attacks by black men, most liaisons between black men and white women were consensual. On May 27, 1892, while she was away in Philadelphia, a mob destroyed the offices of the ''Free Speech and Headlight'' in retaliation for her controversial articles. Wells next spoke to groups in New York City, where her audiences included many leading African-American women. Because of the threats to her life, she moved from Memphis to Chicago. Wells continued to wage her anti-lynching campaign and to write columns attacking Southern injustices. Her articles were published in ''The New York Age'' newspaper.<ref name=WIH>[http://www.lkwdpl.org/wihohio/barn-ida.htm "Ida B. Wells-Barnett"], ''Women in History,'' Lakewood Public Library (OH), Accessed October 15, 2009.</ref> Her writings continued to investigate the incidents that were referred to as causes for lynching black men. Together with [[Frederick Douglass]] and other black leaders, she organized a black boycott of the 1893 [[World's Columbian Exposition]] in Chicago, for its failure to collaborate with the black community on exhibits representing African-American life. Wells, Douglass, Irvine Garland Penn and Ferdinand Barnett wrote sections of a pamphlet to be distributed there: "Reasons Why the Colored American Is Not in the World's Columbian Exposition" detailed the progress of blacks since their arrival in America and the workings of Southern lynchings. Wells later reported to [[Albion W. Tourgée]] that copies of the pamphlet had been distributed to more than 20,000 people at the fair.<ref>Elliott, 239-40.</ref> After the World's Fair in Chicago, Wells decided to stay in the city instead of returning to New York. That year she started work with the ''Chicago Conservator'', the oldest African-American newspaper in the city. Also in 1893, Wells contemplated a [[libel]] suit against two black Memphis attorneys. She turned to Tourgée, who had trained and practiced as a lawyer and judge, for possible free legal help. Deeply in debt, Tourgée could not afford to help but asked his friend Ferdinand L. Barnett if he could. Born in [[Alabama]], Barnett had become the editor of the ''Chicago Conservator'' in 1878. He was an assistant state attorney for 14 years.<ref>Elliott, 239.</ref> Barnett accepted the ''pro bono'' job. ==Personal life== [[File:20070601 Wells House (2).JPG|thumb|[[Ida B. Wells-Barnett House]] is a [[Chicago Landmark]] and [[National Historic Landmark]].]] In 1895, Wells married Ferdinand Barnett.<ref>{{Cite news|first= |last= |authorlink= |coauthors= |title=Miss Ida B. Wells About to marry. |url=http://pqasb.pqarchiver.com/washingtonpost_historical/access/196565212.html?dids=196565212:196565212&FMT=CITE&FMTS=CITE:FT&date=JUN+13%2C+1895&author=&pub=The+Washington+Post&desc=Miss+Ida+B.+Wells+About+to+Marry.&pqatl=google |quote= |publisher=Washington Post |date=June 13, 1895 |accessdate=2008-05-09 }}</ref> She set an early precedent as being one of the first married American women to keep her own last name along with her husband's. The couple had four children: Charles, Herman, Ida, and Alfreda. In her autobiography, ''A Divided Duty'', Wells described the difficulty she had splitting her time between her family and her work. She continued to work after the birth of her first child, traveling and bringing the infant Charles with her. Although she tried to balance her worlds, she could not be as active in her work. [[Susan B. Anthony]] said she seemed "distracted".{{citation needed|date=July 2011}} After having her second child, Wells stepped out of her touring and public life for a time, as she could no longer balance her job with her family. ==Later public career== Wells received much support from other social activists and her fellow clubwomen. In his response to her article in the ''Free Speech'', Frederick Douglass expressed approval of her work: "You have done your people and mine a service...What a revelation of existing conditions your writing has been for me." (Freedman, 1994). Wells took her anti-lynching campaign to Europe with the help of many supporters. In 1896, Wells founded the [[National Association of Colored Women]], and also co-founded the [[National Afro-American Council]]. Wells formed the Women's Era Club, the first civic organization for African-American women. This later was named the Ida B. Wells Club, in honor of its founder. In 1898, Wells was struggling to manage a home life and a career life, but she was still a fierce campaigner in the anti-lynching circle.<ref>"Protests Against Maysville Lynching. (1899, December 9). ''[[The Washington Post]]'', (1877-1954), p. 4. Retrieved December 23, 2008, from [[ProQuest]] Historical Newspapers ''The Washington Post'' (1877 - 1992) database. (Document ID: 190136962). </ref> This was illustrated when the National Association of Colored Women's club met that year in Chicago. To Wells' surprise, she was not invited to take part in the convention. When she confronted the president of the club, [[Mary Church Terrell|Mrs. Terrell]] told her that the women of Chicago wrote to say that if Wells were to take part in the club, they would no longer aid the association. Wells later learned that Terrell's own competitiveness played a part. After traveling through the British Isles and the United States teaching and lecturing about the problem of [[lynching in the United States]], Wells settled in Chicago and worked to improve conditions for its rapidly growing [[History of African Americans in Chicago|African-American population]]. People were starting to move out of the South to northern industrial cities in the [[Great Migration (African American)|Great Migration]]. Competition for jobs and housing caused a rise in social tensions because of the rapid changes. African-American migrants also competed with an expanding wave of rural immigrants from Europe, who were now in competition for jobs. Wells spent the last thirty years of her life in Chicago working on urban reform. She also raised her family and worked on her autobiography. After her retirement, Wells wrote her autobiography, ''Crusade for Justice'' (1928). She never finished it; the book ends in the middle of a sentence, in the middle of a word. Wells died of [[uremia]] (kidney failure) in Chicago on March 25, 1931, at the age of sixty-eight. ==Europe== Wells took two tours to Europe on her campaign for justice, the first in 1893 and the second in 1894. While she was in Europe she spent her time in both Scotland and England, where she gave many speeches and newspaper interviews. In 1893, Wells went to [[Great Britain]] at the invitation of [[Catherine Impey]], a British Quaker. An opponent of imperialism and proponent of racial equality, Impey wanted to ensure that the British public learned about the problem of lynching. Wells rallied a moral crusade among the British. Although Wells and her speeches, complete with at least one grisly photograph showing grinning white children posing beneath a suspended corpse, caused a stir among audiences, they still remained doubtful. Her intentions were to raise money and expose the United States problem with lynching, but Wells was paid so little that she could barely pay her travel expenses.<ref>Elliott, 240-41.</ref> In 1894 before leaving for her second visit to Great Britain, Wells called on William Penn Nixon, the editor of ''Daily Inter-Ocean''. This Chicago paper was the local Republican Party organ and competitor to the Democratic ''Chicago Tribune''.<ref>Elliott, 232.</ref> The ''Daily Inter- Ocean'' was the only paper in the US that persistently denounced lynching.<ref name="Wells, p. 125">Wells, p. 125.</ref> After she told Nixon about her planned tour in England, he asked her to write for the newspaper while on tour.<ref name="Wells, p. 125"/> She became the first black woman to be a paid correspondent for a mainstream white newspaper.<ref>Elliott, 242.</ref> (Tourgée had been writing a column for the same paper.) One article was "In Pembroke Chapel."<ref>Wells, pp. 128-129</ref> She was invited to speak by the minister C.F. Aked. He found it difficult to accept her accounts, but after traveling to the New York [[World's Fair]], read in local papers about the Miller lynching in [[Bardwell, Kentucky]]. He realized that Wells' accounts were accurate.<ref>Wells, p. 129.</ref> Wells was effective in speaking to European audiences. They were shocked to learn about the extent of violence against blacks in the US. Wells' two tours to Europe helped gain support for her cause. She called for the formation of groups to formally protest the lynchings. Wells helped catalyze anti-lynching groups in Europe, which tried to press the US to guarantee the safety of blacks in the South. ==Willard controversy== [[File:Frances Willard.jpg|thumb|right|180px|Frances Willard (1839-1898), secretary of the Woman's Christian Temperance Union.]] [[Frances Willard (suffragist)|Frances Willard]], secretary of the [[Woman's Christian Temperance Union]], a women's organization with branches in every state and a membership of over 200,000, had used the issue of [[Temperance movement|temperance]] to politicize women who saw organizing for suffrage as too radical.<ref>Giddings. 1984, p. 90</ref> Wells' anti-lynching campaign brought the two to England concurrently. As Wells described the horrors of American lynchings, British liberals were incredulous that American white women such as Willard, who had been heralded in the English press as the "Uncrowned Queen of American Democracy," would turn a blind eye to such violence. Wells accused Willard of being silent on the issue of lynchings, and of making racial comments which would add fuel to the fire of mob violence.<ref name="Giddings. 1984, p. 91">Giddings. 1984, p. 91</ref> To support her public allegation, Wells referred to an interview Willard had conducted during a tour of the South in which Willard had cast aspersions, blaming blacks for the defeat of temperance legislation. "The colored race multiplies like the locusts of Egypt," she had said, and "the [[grog]] shop is its center of power... The safety of women, of childhood, of the home is menaced in a thousand localities."<ref name="Giddings. 1984, p. 91"/> In response, Willard and Lady Somerset attempted to use their influence to keep Wells' comments out of the press. Wells responded by revealing that despite Willard's abolitionist forbears and black friends, no black women were admitted to the WCTU's southern branches.{{Citation needed|date=January 2011}} The dispute between Wells and Willard in England intensified the campaign against Wells in the American Press. Though the ''New York Times'' had reported on Wells' visit to Britain without much commentary, the paper ran an opinion piece in August 1894 insinuating that black men were prone to rape and declaring that Wells was a "slanderous and nasty-minded mulattress" who was looking for more "income" than "outcome."<ref>{{cite news|title=British Anti-Lynchers|url=http://select.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=F10C1FFC3E5515738DDDAB0894D0405B8485F0D3|accessdate=23 May 2014|newspaper=New York Times|date=2 Aug 1894}}</ref> These attacks in the American press swayed many Britons to Wells' cause. "It is idle for men to say that the conditions which Miss Wells describes do not exist," a British editor wrote. "Whites of America may not think so; British Christianity does and all the scurrility of the American press won't alter the facts."<ref name="Giddings. 1984, p. 92">Giddings. 1984, p. 92</ref> Wells' British tour ultimately led to the formation of the British Anti-Lynching Committee, which included the [[George Campbell, 8th Duke of Argyll|Duke of Argyll]], the [[Edward Benson (bishop)|Archbishop of Canterbury]], members of Parliament, and the editors of [[The Guardian|The Manchester Guardian]].<ref name="Giddings. 1984, p. 92"/> ==''Southern Horrors'' and ''The Red Record''== [[File:Cover Southern horrors.png|thumb|right]] In 1892 she published a [[pamphlet]] titled ''Southern Horrors: Lynch Law in All Its Phases'', and ''A Red Record'', 1892–1894, which documented research on a lynching. Having examined many accounts of lynching based on the alleged "rape of white women," she concluded that Southerners concocted rape as an excuse to hide their real reason for lynchings: black economic progress, which threatened not only white Southerners' pocketbooks, but also their ideas about black inferiority. The notion of black economic progress was a contemporary issue in the South, where abstract Reconstruction laws often conflicted with real Southern racism. {{quote|The lesson this teaches and which every Afro-American should ponder well, is that a Winchester rifle should have a place of honor in every black home, and it should be used for that protection which the law refuses to give. When the white man who is always the aggressor knows he runs as great a risk of biting the dust every time his Afro-American victim does, he will have greater respect for Afro-American life. The more the Afro-American yields and cringes and begs, the more he has to do so, the more he is insulted, outraged and lynched.<ref name="Southern Horrors"/>}} ''The Red Record'' is a one hundred page pamphlet describing lynching in the United States since the Emancipation Proclamation, while also describing blacks’ struggles since the time of the Emancipation Proclamation. ''The Red Record'' begins by explaining the alarming severity of the lynching situation in the United States. An ignorance of lynching in the U.S., according to Wells-Barnett, developed over a span of ten years during the Reconstruction era. Wells-Barnett talks about slavery, saying the black man’s body and soul were owned by the white man. The soul was dwarfed by the white man, and the body was preserved because of its value. She mentions that “ten thousand Negroes have been killed in cold blood, without the formality of judicial trial and legal execution,” therefore launching her campaign against lynching in this pamphlet, ''The Red Record''. Frederick Douglass wrote an article explaining three eras of Southern barbarism and the excuses that coincided with each. Wells-Barnett goes into detail about each excuse: *The first excuse that Wells explains is the “necessity of the white man to repress and stamp out alleged ‘race riots.’” Once the Civil War ended, there were many riots supposedly being planned by blacks; whites panicked and resisted them forcefully. *The second excuse came during the Reconstruction Era: blacks were lynched because whites feared “Negro Domination” and wanted to stay powerful in the government. Wells-Barnett encouraged those threatened to move their families somewhere safe. *The third excuse was: Blacks had “to be killed to avenge their assaults upon women.” Wells-Barnett explains that any relationship between a white woman and a black man was considered rape during that time period. In this article she states, “Nobody in this section of the country believes the old threadbare lie that Negro men rape white women.” Wells-Barnett lists fourteen pages of statistics concerning lynching done from 1892–1895; she also includes pages of graphic stories detailing lynching done in the South. She credits the findings to white correspondents, white press bureaus, and white newspapers. ''The Red Record'' was a huge pamphlet, not only in size, but in influence. Despite Wells-Barnett's attempt to garner support among white Americans against lynching, she felt her campaign could not overturn the economic interests whites had in using lynching as an instrument to maintain Southern order and discourage Black prosperity, specifically Black men's economic ventures. Ultimately, Wells-Barnett concluded that reason and compassion for the plight of the Negro would never appeal to Southern whites. This pessimism however was not defeating. It made Wells-Barnett realize that armed resistance was perhaps the Negro's only defense against lynching, and launched her efforts to use more powerful white nations like Britain to shame and sanction the racist practices of America.<ref>{{cite journal|last=Curry|first=Tommy J.|title=The Fortune of Wells: Ida B. Wells-Barnett's Use of T. Thomas Fortune's Philosophy of Social Agitation as a Prolegomenon to Militant Civil Rights Activism.|journal=Transactions of the Charles S. Peirce Society|year=2012|volume=48|issue=4|pages=456–482}}</ref> ==Wells and W. E. B. Du Bois== The lives of [[W. E. B. Du Bois]] and Ida B. Wells often ran along parallel tracks. Both used their journalistic writing to condemn lynching. Wells and Du Bois seemed to disagree on the story of why her name did not appear on the original list of NAACP founders. Du Bois implied that Wells had chosen not to be included.<ref>Du Bois, ''Dusk of Dawn; an Essay toward an Autobiography of a Race Concept'', 224.</ref> However, in her autobiography, Wells complains that Du Bois deliberately excluded her from the list.<ref>Wells-Barnett and Duster, ''Crusade for Justice : The Autobiography of Ida B. Wells'', 322.</ref> ==Legacy== Throughout her life, Wells was militant in her demands for equality and justice for [[African-American]]s and insisted for the African-American community to win justice through its own efforts. Since her death, interest in her life and legacy has only grown. Her life is the subject of a widely performed musical drama, which debuted in 2006, by [[Tazewell Thompson]], ''Constant Star''.<ref>{{cite web|last= Gates | first = Anita |url=http://theater.nytimes.com/mem/theater/treview.html?_r=2&res=950CE5DA143FF930A15754C0A9609C8B63&fta=y |title=CONSTANT STAR - Review |publisher=The New York Times | date = July 23, 2006 |accessdate=2010-06-22 }}</ref> The play sums her up: {{quote|...A woman born in slavery, she would grow to become one of the great pioneer activists of the Civil Rights movement. A precursor of [[Rosa Parks]], she was a [[suffragist]], [[newspaper editor]] and publisher, investigative journalist, co-founder of the NAACP, political candidate, mother, wife, and the single most powerful leader in the anti-lynching campaign in America. A dynamic, controversial, temperamental, uncompromising race woman, she broke bread and crossed swords with some of the movers and shakers of her time: [[Frederick Douglass]], [[Susan B. Anthony]], [[Marcus Garvey]], [[Booker T. Washington]], [[W. E. B. Du Bois]], [[Frances Willard (suffragist)|Frances Willard]], and [[William McKinley|President McKinley]]. By any fair assessment, she was a seminal figure in Post-[[Reconstruction era of the United States|Reconstruction]] America.}} On February 1, 1990, the [[United States Postal Service]] issued a 25 cent [[postage stamp]] in her honor.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.usps.com/postalhistory/_pdf/WomenStampSubjects.pdf |title=Women Subjects on United States Postage Stamps|publisher=United States Postal Service |page = 3 | format = PDF|accessdate=2010-06-22 }}</ref> In 2002, [[Molefi Kete Asante]] listed Wells on his list of [[100 Greatest African Americans]].<ref>Asante, Molefi Kete (2002). ''100 Greatest African Americans: A Biographical Encyclopedia''. Amherst, New York. Prometheus Books. ISBN 1-57392-963-8.</ref> In 1941, the [[Public Works Administration]] (PWA) built the [[Ida B. Wells Homes]], a [[Chicago Housing Authority]] public [[housing project]] in the [[Bronzeville, Chicago|Bronzeville]] neighborhood on the south side in [[Chicago, Illinois]]. The buildings were demolished in August 2011.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://wikimapia.org/91552/Ida-B-Wells-Homes |title=Ida B. Wells Homes Chicago, Illinois |publisher=Wikimapia.org |date= |accessdate=2012-05-12}}</ref> ==See also== *[[Ida B. Wells-Barnett House]] *[[List of civil rights leaders]] *[[List of suffragists and suffragettes]] *[[List of women's rights activists]] *[[Timeline of the African American Civil Rights Movement]] *[[Timeline of women's suffrage]] ==Notes== {{Reflist|30em}} ==References== {{Refbegin|2}} *{{Cite book |last=Bay |first=Mia |title=To Tell the Truth Freely: the life of Ida B. Wells |year=2009 |location=New York |publisher=Hill & Wang |isbn=978-0-8090-9529-2 |url=http://books.google.com/books?id=sqf-y9pcfsEC&lpg=PP1&pg=PP1#v=onepage&q&f=false <!--|accessdate=15 September 2011-->}} *Buechler, S.M. (1951). ''Women’s Movements in The United States'', New Brunswick: [[Rutgers University Press]]. *Campbell, Karlyn Kohrs. "Style and Content in the Rhetoric of Early Afro-American Feminists." ''[[The Quarterly Journal of Speech]]'' 72.4 (1986): 434-445. MLA International Bibliography. EBSCO. Web. 2 May 2011. *Curry, Tommy J. (2012). "The Fortune of Wells: Ida B. Wells-Barnett's Use of T. Thomas Fortune's Philosophy of Social Agitation as a Prolegomenon to Militant Civil Rights Activism," ''[[Transactions of Charles S. Peirce Society]]'' 48.4: 456-482. *Davis, E.L. (1922). ''The Story of the Illinois Federation of Colored Women’s Clubs'', Chicago: Illinois Federation of Colored Women’s Clubs. *Elliott, Mark. ''Color-Blind Justice: Albion Tourgée and the Quest for Racial Equality from the Civil War to Plessey v. Ferguson''. New York: Oxford University Press (2006). *Gere, A.R. & Robbins, S. R. (1996). "Gendered Literacy in Black and White: Turn-of-the-Century African-American and European American Club Club Women's Printed Text", ''[[Signs (journal)|Signs]]'', 643-648. *[[Paula Giddings|Giddings, P.J.]] (2008). ''[http://www.amazon.com/Ida-Sword-Campaign-Against-Lynching/dp/0060797363/ref=ntt_at_ep_dpt_3 Ida, A Sword Among Lions]: Ida B. Wells and the Campaign Against Lynching'' (New York: [[Amistad (publishing)|Amistad]]/[[Harper Collins]], 2008, ISBN 0060797363). *Hendricks, W.A. (1998). ''Gender, Race, and Politics in the Midwest'', Bloomington: [[Indiana University Press]]. *McCammon, H. (2003). "The Changing Tactical Repertoire of the U.S. Women's Suffrage Movements", ''[[Social Forces]]'', 787-813. *McMurray, L.O. (1998). '' To Keep the Waters Troubled'', New York: [[Oxford University Press]]. *Parker, Maegan. (2008) "Desiring Citizenship: A Rhetorical Analysis of the Wells/Willard Controversy," ''[[Women's Studies in Communication]]'' 31.1, 56-78. *Royster, J.J. (1997). '' Southern Horrors and Other Writings'', New York: Bedford. *Wells, Ida B. (1970). Alfreda M. Duster. ed.'' Crusade For Justice: The Autobiography of Ida B. Wells''. Negro American Biographies and Autobiographies Series. [[John Hope Franklin]], Series Editor. Chicago: [[University of Chicago Press]]. ISBN 0-226-89342-1. http://lccn.loc.gov/73108837. Retrieved 2008-12-23. *Zackodnik, Teresa. (2005). "Ida B. Wells and ‘American Atrocities’ in Britain," ''Womens Studies International Forum'' 28.4, 259-273. {{Refend}} ==Further reading== {{Refbegin}} *{{gutenberg author| id=Ida+B.+Wells-Barnett | name=Ida B. Wells}} *[http://books.google.com/books?id=PjqS0NaN-4gC&printsec=frontcover&source=gbs_ge_summary_r&cad=0#v=onepage&q&f=false ''The Memphis Diary of Ida B. Wells''], memoirs, travel notes and selected articles (Beacon Press, 1995) *[http://www.historyisaweapon.com/defcon1/wellslynchlaw.html Ida B. Wells, "Lynch Law" (1893)], History Is a Weapon Website *[http://lincoln.lib.niu.edu/cgi-bin/philologic/navigate.pl?lincoln.4639 I.B.Wells "A Red Record. Tabulated Statistics and Alleged Causes of Lynchings in the United States, 1892-1893-1894. Respectfully Submitted to the Nineteenth Century Civilization in 'the Land of the Free and the Home of the Brave' . Chicago: Donohue and Henneberry, 1895." Northern Illinois University Libraries digitization Projects]. *{{cite web| url = http://dig.lib.niu.edu/gildedage/idabwells/index.html | title = Ida B. Wells - Illinois During the Gilded Age, 1866-1896| accessdate = 2008-03-28 | publisher = [[Northern Illinois University]], Illinois Historical Digitization Projects at Northern Illinois University Libraries }} *{{cite web| url = http://www.duke.edu/~ldbaker/classes/AAIH/caaih/ibwells/ibwbkgrd.html | title = Ida B. Wells-Barnett(1862-1931) and Her Passion for Justice, Black Women, African American Women, Sufferage, [sic] Women's Movement, Civil Rights Leaders | accessdate = 2007-12-09 | author = Lee D. Baker | publisher = [[Duke University]] }} *{{cite web| url = https://lcrm.lib.unc.edu/blog/index.php/2012/07/16/remembering-ida-b-wells-barnett/ | title = Remembering Ida B. Wells-Barnett | accessdate = 2012-09-29 | author = Alison Shay | publisher = [[University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill]] }} * [http://www.africawithin.com/bios/ida_wells.htm Bio: "Ida B. Wells-Barnett"], Africa Within Website *Davidson, James West. '''They say': Ida B. Wells and the Reconstruction of Race''. Oxford University Press, 2009. ISBN 978-0-19-516021-5 *{{cite web| url = http://www.ibiblio.org/uncpress/chapters/schechter_ida.html | title = Ida B. Wells-Barnett and American Reform, 1880-1930 | accessdate = 2011-04-31 | author = Patricia A. Schechter | publisher = [[University of North Carolina Press]] }} {{Refend}} ==External links== {{Library resources box|by=yes|onlinebooks=yes|viaf=72196119}} *{{Wikisource-inline}} *{{Commons category inline}} *{{Find a Grave|7862236|Ida B. Wells-Barnett|work=Social Reformer|author=R. Digati|date=Sep 11, 2003|accessdate=Aug 17, 2011}} *[http://www.booknotes.org/Watch/152229-1/Linda+McMurry.aspx ''Booknotes'' interview with Linda McMurry on ''To Keep the Waters Troubled: The Life of Ida B. Wells'', September 26, 1999.] {{Suffrage}} {{National Women's Hall of Fame}} {{Lynching in the United States}} {{Feminism}} {{Authority control|VIAF=72196119|LCCN=n/50/17823}} {{Persondata | NAME = Wells, Ida B. | ALTERNATIVE NAMES =Ida B. Wells-Barnett | SHORT DESCRIPTION =Social Reformer | DATE OF BIRTH = July 16, 1862 | PLACE OF BIRTH = Holly Springs, Mississippi | DATE OF DEATH = March 25, 1931 | PLACE OF DEATH = Chicago, Illinois }} {{DEFAULTSORT:Wells, Ida B.}} [[Category:1862 births]] [[Category:1931 deaths]] [[Category:American activists]] [[Category:American women activists]] [[Category:African-American activists]] [[Category:African-Americans' civil rights activists]] [[Category:African-American women writers]] [[Category:Civil rights activists]] [[Category:American women's rights activists]] [[Category:American feminists]] [[Category:American suffragists]] [[Category:People from Holly Springs, Mississippi]] [[Category:Fisk University alumni]] [[Category:African Americans in the media]] [[Category:19th-century African-American activists]] [[Category:20th-century African-American activists]] [[Category:Lynching in the United States]] [[Category:Women sociologists]] [[Category:Rust College alumni]]'