Ida B. Wells

Ida B. Wells exercised her rights to freedom of speech and press to bring national attention to ending injustices. Wells was born in Mississippi in 1862. She was the oldest of eight children. Her parents died when she was 14, and she raised her younger siblings herself. She put herself through college and became a teacher in Memphis, Tennessee.

In 1892, Wells lost three close friends to a lynch mob. These gruesome killings made headlines, but no one was arrested or charged. As a journalist and a newspaper owner and editor, Wells boldly wrote about the racism that motivated such murders. The press attacked her as a “black scoundrel” for saying that lynching had nothing to do with justice or honor. A mob ransacked her office and threatened her life, but she continued her crusade.

Wells later moved to Chicago where she published The Red Record, the first documented statistical report on lynching. She became a respected public speaker, and traveled widely, lecturing on anti-lynching activities, speaking out against segregation, and advocating for women’s voting rights. She co-founded the National Association for the Advancement for Colored People (NAACP) in 1909.