Happy Birthday Ida B. Wells

“The only times an Afro-American who was assaulted got away has been when he had a gun and used it in self defense” - Ida B. Wells

(Ida B. Wells)

Ida B. Wells was born on July 16th, 1862 in Holly Springs, Mississippi, USA. She was born into slavery. Wells attended Shaw University but she was expelled for rebellious behavior after confronting the college president. In 1878 her parents and her infant brother died due to yellow fever. She found work as a teacher in a black elementary school in order to keep her younger siblings together as a family. Her paternal grandmother, Peggy Wells, along with other friends and relatives, stayed with her siblings and cared for them during the week while Wells was away teaching. Wells resented that in the segregated school system, white teachers were paid $80 a month and 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 Wells took three of her younger siblings to Memphis, TN to live with her aunt. During her summer vacations she attended summer sessions at Fisk University. She held strong political opinions and provoked many people with her views on women's rights. In 1884 a train conductor with the Memphis and Charleston Railroad 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. Wells refused to give up her seat. The conductor and 2 men dragged Wells out of the car. Wells then hired an African American attorney to sue the railroad. She won the case and was awarded $500. In 1887 The railroad company appealed to the Tennessee Supreme Court, which reversed the lower court's ruling.

(Wells in 1887)

In 1889 she became co owner and editor of “Free Speech and Headlight”, an anti segregation newspaper. In 1891 Wells was dismissed from her teaching post by the Memphis Board of Education due to the various articles she had written which critiqued the conditions in the colored schools of the region. In 1889 after 3 of her friends were lynched she wrote in “Free Speech and Headlight”, urging blacks to leave Memphis, TN altogether.

(Wells in 1890)

More than 6,000 blacks did leave Memphis. Others organized boycotts of white owned businesses. After being threatened with violence, she bought a pistol. She then began investigative journalism. This officially started her anti lynching campaign. Wells found that Blacks were lynched for such social control reasons as failing to pay debts, not appearing to give way to whites, competing with whites economically, and being drunk in public. She found little basis for the frequent claim that Blacks were lynched because they had sexually abused or attacked white women, which was the alibi that partly accounted for White America's collective acceptance or silence on lynching. In 1892 while she was away in Philadelphia, PA a mob destroyed the offices of the “Free Speech and Headlight” in retaliation for her controversial articles. Wells left Memphis, TN and moved to Chicago, IL due to threats on her life. Also in 1892 Wells published a pamphlet titled “Southern Horrors: Lynch Law in All Its Phases”. Wells recommended that blacks use arms to defend against lynching.

(Wells in 1892)

In 1893 together with Frederick Douglass and other black leaders, she organized a black boycott of the World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago, IL for having no exhibits to represent African American life. In 1894 Wells took a tour to Europe in her campaign for justice. Also in 1894 Wells helped form a Republican Women's Club in Illinois in response to women being granted the right to vote for a state elective office. In 1895 Wells married her attorney Ferdinand Barnett. In 1896 Wells founded the National Association of Colored Women's Clubs and the National Afro American Council. On March 25, 1931 Ida B. Wells died of kidney failure in Chicago, Illinois, USA. She was 68 years old.

(Wells in 1931)

Today is her 155th birthday and we would all like to say happy birthday and rest in peace Ida B. Wells.