Ida B. Wells-Barnett

BORN: July 16, 1862 • Holly Springs, Mississippi

DIED: March 25, 1931 • Chicago, Illinois

Journalist; political activist

Ida B. Wells-Barnett began life as a slave. As a young woman, she was forcefully removed from a train after refusing to give up her seat to a white man. This prompted her to begin a career in journalism that would eventually make her the most outspoken opponent of lynching (putting a person to death, without a trial and usually by hanging).

"Somebody must show that the Afro-American race is more sinned against than sinning, and it seems to have fallen upon me to do so."

Born into slavery

Ida B. Wells was born in Holly Springs, Mississippi, on July 16, 1862, to slave parents. Six months after her birth, President Abraham Lincoln (1809–1865; served 1861–65) signed the Emancipation Proclamation, giving all slaves their freedom. Wells's father was a carpenter who was active in politics and became interested in helping educate the freed slaves, including his own seven children. Wells and her siblings received basic academic and religious training through school and church.

When she was just sixteen years old, Wells lost her parents and one brother in a yellow fever epidemic that swept through Holly Springs in 1878. (Yellow fever is a deadly virus transmitted by mosquitoes.) Not quite finished with her high-school education, Wells now had to find a way to care for her five younger brothers and sisters. By pinning up her hair and wearing a long dress, Wells was able to convince the superintendent of a school five miles from home that she was eighteen. She was hired as a teacher, a position that paid $25 a month. During the week, she lived near the school while her siblings stayed with various people in their hometown. On weekends, Wells would return home to care for the children and do all the tasks required for keeping a large family, such as cooking and doing laundry.

In 1882, Wells and her two sisters moved to Memphis, Tennessee, leaving behind their brothers to work as carpenter's apprentices (students). Wells found another teaching job in one of the city's all–African American schools. During the summer, she took classes at Fisk University in Nashville. She had also attended Rust University in Holly Springs for a short time, but never earned a degree from either institution.

Stands up for her rights

In 1884, Wells bought a first-class train ticket to Nashville, Tennessee. Despite having paid for a ticket that would allow her to travel in the first-class car, once onboard, Wells was instructed to move to the back of the train, where African Americans were forced to ride. She refused, and as the conductor was forcibly trying to remove her, Wells bit his hand. It took the help of a baggage handler to get Wells out of the train car and into the back. She rode to the next stop, where she left the train and headed back to Memphis.

Wells filed a lawsuit against the railroad and won a settlement of $500. In 1887, however, the Tennessee Supreme Court reversed the ruling on the grounds that she had intended only to cause difficulty for the railroad company. The final decision was a blow to Wells's belief that justice would win out. She did not let her discouragement stop her from standing up for what she believed was right. Soon the name "Iola" was appearing in African American newspapers. Iola was the name Wells used when she wrote about politics and race issues in the South. In 1887, less than one year after she began writing under an assumed name, the National Afro-American Press named her the most prominent (outstanding) correspondent for the American black press. She was also elected as the assistant secretary of the organization.

Buys a newspaper

In 1891, Wells became co-owner of an African American newspaper, the Memphis Free Speech and Headlight. She quickly became the newspaper's editor. Her duties included writing articles, hiring correspondents, and increasing the paper's subscription base. She continued to teach during the school year.

Wells's teaching career came to an abrupt halt when she wrote and published an article criticizing Memphis's school system. The federal law at the time made it a crime for African Americans not to have the same rights as whites, but it upheld the belief that the two races should remain segregated (separated). This concept was known as "separate-but-equal." In reality, African Americans were still not treated equally. Although they had their own restaurants and public places, such facilities were never as good as those reserved for white patrons. This separate-but-equal philosophy infiltrated the South's school systems, and it suffered from the same inequalities. Although African American children were being taught in classrooms, their teachers were paid less, their textbooks were not as good as those used in white classrooms, and their schools received only a small percentage of the funding white schools received.

The school board knew Wells had written the article, even though she did not include a byline (indication of author). Wells was relieved of her duties as teacher, and her time was now freed and completely dedicated to improving the conditions of her race.

The year 1892 was a crucial one for Wells. Three people, one a good friend of Wells, were lynched while defending their grocery store from white attackers who wanted to put the store out of business. In the scuffle, one of the owners shot one of the attackers. A gang of white men seeking vengeance came after the three men and hanged them all. An outraged Wells criticized the event in a series of articles in which she specifically discussed the evils of lynching. She argued that the cruel punishment was not used to keep criminals in line but to enforce white supremacy (the idea that whites were superior to African Americans). She encouraged African Americans to boycott (not shop at) all white businesses, and even to leave town if need be. While visiting New York City shortly after her editorials went to press, a white mob ransacked and destroyed her newspaper office and told her they would kill her if she ever returned.

A new job, a continuing mission

Wells knew it was too dangerous to return to Memphis, so she stayed in New York and took a job as a writer at a magazine called Age. One of her first stories detailed several dozen recent lynchings, including names of the murderers, dates, and locations. The article was published at a good time. Historians estimate that 233 lynchings took place between 1880 and 1884; 381 from 1885 to 1889. These figures are probably much lower than the actual number of lynchings that took place. Many people never reported lynchings for fear of retaliation from whites.

Although the issue in which Wells's article was published sold ten thousand copies, its readers were primarily African American, and they already knew the horror of lynching. Wells knew she had to reach a white audience if she was to get help in putting an end to the barbaric act that took the lives of so many African Americans.

In an effort to bring her message to people who could help, Wells went on a tour of Europe and the British Isles. While there, she founded the National Afro-American Council and served as chairman of its Anti-Lynching Bureau. With the help of reformers in England, her cause was reported in American newspapers. Unfortunately, those same papers also attacked Wells as a nasty woman who spread lies. Conservative whites disliked her, but so did wealthy African Americans, who saw her as a threat to their security. They enjoyed the life of upper-class society, and to be associated with Wells, even if only by skin color, was not something they wanted.

Wells returned home in 1893 and moved to Chicago, Illinois, where she began working for an African American newspaper called the Conservator. That same year, she joined forces with another reformer, abolitionist (antislavery activist) Frederick Douglass (1818–1895), and wrote a pamphlet titled "The Reason Why the Colored American Is Not Represented in the World's Columbian Exposition." Ten thousand copies of the pamphlet were distributed at the Chicago World's Fair, an event that changed the cultural and social landscape of America forever.

Marries and retires, but not really

In 1895, Wells married lawyer Ferdinand Barnett, who happened to also be her editor. Her plan was to go into retirement, but that plan fell through. She did cut back on the amount of international travel she did to speak publicly at conventions, but that same year, Wells-Barnett published a detailed account of all the lynchings she could find information on in a book titled A Red Record: Tabulated Statistics and Alleged Causes of Lynchings in the United States, 1892–1893–1894. Wells-Barnett and her husband eventually had four children, and she dedicated her time to raising her family while not losing sight of the importance of her cause.

Wells-Barnett encouraged other African Americans to become active in their local regions. She herself helped establish the first kindergarten in the African American district of Chicago. She also joined Jane Addams (1860–1935; see entry), founder of the famous Hull-House Settlement (an early social-services community), in successfully protesting Chicago's plan to segregate its public schools. Wells-Barnett continued to denounce discrimination publicly. In the early 1900s, she exposed the segregationist policies of the popular Young Men's Christian Association (YMCA), causing a handful of wealthy donors to withdraw their financial support of the group. They channeled their money instead into the Negro Fellowship Reading Room and Social Center.

Helps establish the NAACP

Wells-Barnett worked tirelessly for three years with other African American reformers and activists to help found the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP). The organization was formally established in 1909 with the goal of ensuring the political, educational, social, and economic equality of all African Americans. Wells-Barnett resigned her membership not long after the formation of the NAACP, however, because she believed the group was not militant (radical) enough. African American activists were basically separated into two groups during those days. One group favored accommodation, which meant they made the best of whatever situation they found themselves in and did not rally for more of anything—rights, money, social equality. The other group believed the only way to attain equality was through insisting on truly equal rights; Wells-Barnett sided with this group.

Her last years

Wells-Barnett spent the last two decades of her life involved in community organization and social work in Chicago. She made herself available to do what she believed needed to be done. For instance, in 1913, she worked as an adult probation officer, a duty she remained committed to for three years. Also in 1913, she formed the first African American women's suffrage (right to vote) organization, the Alpha Suffrage Club of Chicago. She wrote her autobiography, Crusade for Justice, in 1928. In 1930, she unsuccessfully ran for the Illinois state legislature, becoming the first African American woman ever to run for public office.

Wells-Barnett would not live to see the end of lynching as a common southern occurrence. It would be 1968 before regular lynchings would gradually stop. According to Robert Zangrando's article "About Lynching," 1882 was the first year any sort of reliable lynching statistics were kept. Between 1882 and 1968, nearly 5,000 people—3,446 of them African American men, women, and children—were lynched. Mississippi had the most lynchings (539 African American victims, 42 white). Well into the twentieth century, lynchings were social events. White families would bring their children to watch the torture and hanging of victims. Spectators watched, fascinated, as victims were dismembered (had body parts cut off), soaked in oil and set on fire alive, then hanged. Railroads sold tickets to lynchings. Newspapers often carried notices of planned executions so townspeople could be sure to put the event on their calendars.

Wells-Barnett died in Chicago of uremia (toxins in the bloodstream due to kidney disease) on March 25, 1931. She was sixty-nine years old. A low-income housing project was built in Chicago in 1941 and named after her. In 1988, she was inducted into the National Women's Hall of Fame. A commemorative stamp bearing her likeness was issued by the U.S. Postal Service in 1990.

For More Information

BOOKS

Als, Hilton, et al. Without Sanctuary: Lynching Photography in America. Santa Fe: Twin Palms Publishers, 2000.

McMurry, Linda O. To Keep the Waters Troubled: The Life of Ida B. Wells. New York: Oxford University Press, 1998.

Schechter, Patricia A. Ida B. Wells-Barnett and American Reform, 1880–1930. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2001.

Welch, Catherine. Ida B. Wells-Barnett: Powerhouse with a Pen. Minneapolis: Carolrhoda Books, 2000.

Wells, Ida B. Crusade for Justice: The Autobiography of Ida B. Wells. Edited by Alfreda M. Duster. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1970.

WEB SITES

Baker, Lee D. "Ida B. Wells-Barnett and Her Passion for Justice." Duke University. http://www.duke.edu/~ldbaker/classes/AAIH/caai/ibwells/ibwbkgrd.html (accessed on September 6, 2006).

Gado, Mark. "Lynchings in America." Crime Library.http://www.crimelibrary.com/classics2/carnival/ (accessed on September 6, 2006).

"Ida B. Wells-Barnett." AfricaWithin.com.http://www.africawithin.com/bios/ida_wells.htm (accessed on September 6, 2006).

Library of Congress. "The Progress of a People: Ida B. Wells-Barnett." African American Perspectives.http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/aap/idawells.html (accessed on September 6, 2006).

Long Island University. "Lynchings in America." B. Davis Schwartz Memorial Library of the C. W. Post Campus.http://www.liu.edu/CWIS/CWP/library/african/2000/lynching.htm (accessed on September 6, 2006).

Naill, Katherine. "Ida B. Wells-Barnett 'Southern Horrors: Lynch Law In All Its Phases."' University of Arkansas.http://www.uark.edu/depts/comminfo/women/wells.htm (accessed on September 6, 2006).

PBS. "Ida B. Wells." The Rise and Fall of Jim Crow.http://www.pbs.org/wnet/jimcrow/stories_people_wells.html (accessed on September 6, 2006).

Without Sanctuary.http://withoutsanctuary.org/ (accessed on September 6, 2006).

Zangrando, Robert L. "About Lynching." University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign: Modern American Poetry.http://www.english.uiuc.edu/maps/poets/g_l/lynching/lynching.htm (accessed on September 6, 2006).