Ida B. Wells-Barnett

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Ida B. Wells-Barnett
July 16, 1862- March 25, 1931 A Reformer for
Racial Equality
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Ida B. Wells-Barnett

• Educator
• Anti-lynching crusader
• Suffragist
• Women's rights advocate
• Journalist
• Speaker
• Born in Holly Springs, Mississippi in 1862
• Died in Chicago, Illinois in 1931 at age 69

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Family

• Oldest daughter of James and Lizzie Wells
• Parents enslaved prior to Civil War
• Supported 7 children because her mother was a
  "famous" cook and
• Her father was a skilled carpenter

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Early Years

• When Ida was 14
• An epidemic of Yellow Fever swept through Holly
  Springs
• Killed her parents and youngest sibling
• She kept family together by teaching
• Continued education at near-by Rust College
• Moved to Memphis to live with her aunt
• Helped raise her youngest sisters

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Racial and Gender Justice

• In Memphis, she began to fight for racial and
  gender justice.
• 1884 conductor of Chesapeake Ohio Railroad
  Company asked her to give seat on train to a
  white man
• She had a first class ticket
• Ordered her into the smoking or "Jim Crow" car

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Experiencing Discrimination

• Forcibly removed from train
• She bit one of the men on the hand
• Wells sued the railroad, winning a 500
  settlement in a circuit court case.
• Decision was later overturned by the Tennessee
  Supreme Court

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Social Context1865 Reconstruction Begins

• 13th Amendment Abolished slavery
• 14th Amendment Equal protection under the law to
  all U.S. citizens
• 15th Amendment Cannot deny rights based on race
• Freedman's Bureau Provided food, clothing,
  hospitals, help with employment, and schools for
  blacks in the South

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Law and Reality

• Despite 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 racially segregated
  passengers

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Social Context1866 Ku Klux Klan

• KKK formed by white southerners
• Angry that African Americans
• Could participate in politics and hold government
  offices
• Wore white robes and high pointed hats
• KKK A terrorist organization
• Persecuting blacks and other minorities

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Anti-lynching Campaign

• In 1892 three of her friends were lynched.
• Thomas Moss, Calvin McDowell, and Henry Stewart.
• Owners of People's Grocery Company
• Had taken away customers from white businesses

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Lynching

• Group of angry white men tried to "eliminate
  competition
• Attacked People's grocery
• Owners fought back
• Shooting one of the attackers
• Owners of People's Grocery were arrested
• Lynch-mob broke into the jail
• Brutally murdered all three men

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1892 Crusade against Lynching

• Police refused to arrest killers
• Wells tried to start a boycott against
  white-owned stores and public transportation
• Between 1885 1901 more than 2,000 Blacks were
  lynched.

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Anti-lynching Activism

• She was editor and co-owner of local Black
  newspaper, Free Speech and Headlight
• Used the newspaper to attack lynching and racism
• Newspaper store was burned

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Anti-lynching

• Wells also encouraged Blacks to move West.
• Her life in danger, Ida left for England to find
  work
• Returned to the US, moved to Chicago

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Activist

• In Chicago, she helped develop numerous African
  American women organizations
• Diligent in her anti-lynching crusade
• Worker for women's suffrage

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Womens Suffrage

• Participated in famous 1913 march for universal
  suffrage in Washington, D.C.
• Unable to tolerate any injustice
• Ida B. Wells, along with Jane Addams
• Blocked establishment of segregated schools in
  Chicago

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Lawyer Inez Milholland prepares to lead the
Suffrage Parade, on March 3, 1913.
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Marriage and Retirement

• 1895 Wells married editor of one of Chicago's
  early Black newspapers
• She wrote "I was married in the city of Chicago
  to Attorney F. L. Barnett, and retired to what I
  thought was the privacy of a home."
• Did not stay retired long
• Continued writing and organizing

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1909--NAACP

• In 1909, she joined with W.E.B. DuBois and others
  to form the NAACP
• The NAACP was formed to aid African Americans
  who were victims of violence or discrimination
• She was among few Black leaders to explicitly
  oppose Booker T. Washington and his strategies

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Crusader to the End

• As late as 1930, she became disgusted by
• nominees of major parties to state legislature
• Wells-Barnett decided to run for the Illinois
  State
• Legislature
• One of first Black women to run for public office
  in
• the United States
• A year later, she passed away after a lifetime
• crusading for justice.

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Billie Holiday

• Strange Fruit
• Published in1937 as a poem.
• https//www.youtube.com/watch?vh4ZyuULy9zs
• Written by Abel Meeropol, Jewish family
• After leaving college he became a teacher in New
  York City.
• His students included Paddy Chayefsky, Neil Simon
  and James Baldwin.
• Meeropol was also a member of the American
  Communist Party.