Girl of the Week: Ida B. Wells

By Jenny Lee, GGMP Mentor

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Photo from WNYC Studios

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What does it mean to go against the status quo? To fight against the very individuals and institutions that were built to silence your voice and discredit your story? To be a strong woman who knows her boundaries, protected her boundaries, and fought to make sure that no one had the right to violate them?

Ida B. Wells (1862-1931) was the first journalist to cover lynching and one of the first investigative reporters to critically examine systemic racial inequities. She reported on racism following Plessy v. Ferguson (1896), a landmark U.S. Supreme Court decision establishing that separate but equal was constitutional. Wells was born enslaved in 1862 before the close of the Civil War. Emancipation came soon thereafter, but freedom came without reparations. Wells was able to attend school, eventually enrolling in college. However, she was expelled for criticizing the school president, showing how outspoken and passionate she was from the start.

During a visit to her grandmother in 1878, Wells was informed that her hometown had been hit by a yellow fever epidemic. Her parents and infant brother died from the disease, and Wells took a job as a teacher in order to keep her family together (her brothers and sister). They eventually moved to Memphis, Tennessee, where Wells continued to work as an instructor.

In 1884, Wells filed a lawsuit against a Memphis train car company in Memphis for unfair treatment, after being removed from a first-class train despite possessing a ticket. She won the case on the local level, but lost the appeal decision from the federal court. Long before Rosa Parks, Wells was fighting against the racist, discriminatory practices that were being implemented in transportation.

In 1892, three Black men were lynched in Memphis. Their names were Thomas Moss, Calvin McDowell, and Will Stewart. Wells was friends with Moss, and this event spurred her to critically investigate the reasons for lynchings of Black men, and how many Black people were unjustly murdered due to such actions.

After investigating several cases and collecting data across the nation, Wells published her findings in a pamphlet titled, “Southern Horrors: Lynch Law in All Its Phases,” in addition to writing many columns in local newspapers. In doing so, Wells exposed the injustices of systemic racism and discrimination that permeated (and continues to permeate) the United States using statistical data to reveal racist patterns. She showed that lawless killing of Black individuals was systematic in the deep South, establishing racial prejudice as the main motivation.

Ida truly embodied the notion of speaking truth to power and challenging authority to advocate for justice. She exposed the truth in ways that respected the humanity of others and herself, writing in her 1895 book, “The Red Record,”

The very frequent inquiry made after my lectures by interested friends is “What can I do to help the cause?” The answer always is: “Tell the world the facts.”

As a lifelong anti-lynching activist, Wells never gave up, even when she would be met with severe pushback from powerful political officials. As a journalist, Wells understood that feeling unheard is an astronomical burden for people and communities to endure — she knew that there is no neutral response to injustice, suffering, and abuse of human rights.

Wells was courageous, tenacious, and innovative. She fought against entrenched systems of oppression, with her words and vivacity as her weapons. Wells continuously questioned the supposed naturality of systems of oppression, which were perceived to be “just the way things are.” Ahead of her time, Wells knew that there were individuals and groups who were actively making decisions for systems to make everything “the way it is,” and she knew that it was possible to fight against the systems.