An activist is someone who dedicates his or her life bringing about political or social change in their community, country or the world. Ida B. Wells is an activist because she campaigned for equal rights of African Americans in the justice system and in public services. Without her work as a journalist, the end to lynching in America could have been prolonged many more years, as it would have gone largely unnoticed by the public as a pressing problem. Her pamphlet, Southern Horrors, described her experiences with lynchings as she traveled throughout the South. During her travels, she confronted mobs and fearlessly put her life at risk. By her persistence in exposing the truth about lynch law, she inspired widespread protests that laid the foundation for political and social change.
Born into slavery, Ida B. Wells was an early influencer in the Civil Rights movement by establishing organizations and fighting cases against segregation and discrimination in court after the emancipation. She first got involved when she experienced the failure of the “separate but equal” ruling firsthand. On a first-class train to Nashville, Wells was asked to give up her seat and sit in the smoking colored car because the first class colored car was nonexistent. She argued that she had paid for first class and insisted that she keep her seat, but was dragged off the train (Long before Rosa Parks). She sued the railroad in a circuit court and won $500, but the ruling was overturned by the Tennessee Supreme Court so that the decision would not set a legal precedent for the desegregation of railroads (Ida, para 14). Ida B. Wells continued speaking out against other forms of prejudice and discrimination after three of her friends were lynched when supremacists learned that the colored-owned grocery store was more successful than a white-owned grocery store (Baker para 8). Traveling throughout the South, Wells wrote articles for African-American newspapers such as Memphis Free Speech, Headlight, and Free Speech under the moniker “lola” as well as writing Southern Horrors: Lynch Law in All Its Phases. As a result of her deeds, her office was raided and her equipment was destroyed. Wells was forced to move to Chicago when unhappy readers in Memphis addressed death notes to her and her family. While Wells lived out the rest of her life in refuge, her influence continued in the South. According to Biography.com, “she left behind an impressive legacy of social and political heroism. With her writings, speeches and protests, Wells fought against prejudice, no matter what potential dangers she faced” (Ida para 22). Wells faced a lot of dangers in the South, but no threat stopped her from working hard to refine the world for her friends, family, and community. Wells dedicated her life to the advancement of African-Americans, once saying, "I felt that one had better die fighting against injustice than to die like a dog or a rat in a trap” (Ida para 22).
Ida B. Wells was also a leader in reforming public opinion on lynching, which at the time was generally accepted as commonplace by the people, by writing a pamphlet and sparking protests. Southern Horrors, Lynch Law in all its Phases was originally published in the New York Age as a series of articles published after Wells braved the deep south to witness the abuse of American lives. Once she received unprecedented publicity, she was given donations to have the article published as a pamphlet. The pamphlet received praise from many, including Frederick Douglass, saying, “Let me give you thanks for your faithful paper on the lynch abomination now generally practiced against colored people in the South. There has been no word equal to it in convincing power … You give us what you know and testify from actual knowledge. You have dealt with the facts with cool, painstaking fidelity and left those naked and uncontradicted facts to speak for themselves” (Wells 3). The pamphlet included the stories of many colored people who were wrongly convicted of a crime or suffered severe penalty from a minor crime, as they were tried by a white judge and jury. In the south, a minor jail sentence for a colored man was essentially the death penalty. Colored prisoners were often kidnapped from jail and lynched in the middle of the night with no resistance from the guards. It was reports like these that led to protests like the one shown in the image below to urge lawmakers to pass strict anti-lynch laws. People who either knew or understood the true story of the victims fought against the newspapers’ glorification of lynching, “Newspapers often advertised public lynchings in advance, and afterwards provided gruesome details of the event. Sensationalized headlines such as “Five White Men Take Negro Into Woods; Kill Him: Had Been Charged with Associating with White Women,” wired by the Associated Press about a lynching in Louisiana, are representative of how the press often cited the alleged crimes of the victim in order to justify such executions without due process” (Coleman para 8). A group of women staged the protest shown in the picture in front of the White House in 1946 (Coleman para 1). Without Wells’s activism, lynching could have lasted much longer and become more rampant with little to no repercussion from the federal and state governments.
Wells often confronted lynch mobs, where a swarm of angry men and women gather and begin beating a black man that was kidnapped from jail. No police try to stop the mob as a noose is thrown over a tree limb. Ida B. Wells, notebook in hand, runs to the leader of the mob and questions the reasoning for this man’s execution. The leader, with no true explanation other than that the victim owns a store that competes against a white owned store disregards her and pushes her out of the way. Ida takes notes on the incident and writes an article for her newspaper that night. The next day, groups of women and African Americans protest in front of the city hall for anti-lynch law enforcement. While traveling throughout the south, this chain of events occurred numerous times as she wrote her articles, which were later turned into a pamphlet. This put her life at risk. The 1946 image where protesters marched on Washington was sparked by Ida B. Well’s articles that brought attention to lynches. Marches brought awareness to the issue and urged legislators to make anti-lynch laws and judges to be more impartial with legal cases where a white man prosecuted a black man. Because of her ambitions to expose hate in the south, her life was constantly in jeopardy. She was dedicated to ending racism and bringing lynchers to justice.
Using her gift of writing, Ida B. Wells saved hundreds of lives by devoting her life to end lynching. She achieved many different things that advanced the Civil Rights Movement: fighting segregation in court, writing for black newspapers, founding multiple organizations, and establishing a long legacy of African American activism. Her boldness when lecturing lynch mobs demonstrates her grit in finding nonviolent ways to change the social norm for prosecuting blacks. Her fearless articles and pamphlets that resulted in constant death threats brought about protests that influence legislative decisions. Even while living in Chicago to protect herself and her family, she continued to amend the unjust ways of the nation. Ida B. Wells, an early leader in Civil Rights, inaugurated nearly a century of political and social change for African Americans.
Works Cited
Baker, Lee D. “Ida B. Wells-Barnett and Her Passion for Justice.” People.duke.edu,
Acpub.duke.edu, Apr. 1996,
people.duke.edu/~ldbaker/classes/aaih/caaih/ibwells/ibwbkgrd.html. Accessed 22 Jan.
2018.
Coleman, Arica L. “An Old Phenomenon: Victims Portrayed as Criminals.” Time, Time, 29
Sept. 2016,
time.com/4508748/victims-as-criminals/. Accessed 22 Jan. 2018.
“Ida B. Wells.” Biography.com, A&E Networks Television, 19 Jan. 2018,
www.biography.com/people/ida-b-wells-9527635. Accessed 22 Jan. 2018.
Wells, Ida B. Southern Horrors. Lynch Law in All Its Phases. Southern Horrors. Lynch Law in
All Its Phases, The New York Age Print, 1892.