Ida B. Wells-Barnett

Ida Barnett Wells was born during the era of slavery and lived during the emancipation of enslaved African-American. However, Wells would witness the birth of Jim Crow laws preventing African-Americans from enjoying true liberation. Abraham Lincoln stated for African-American, they were "free but not equal". But for African-American women, Wells experienced the silence on the intersectional position of being both an African-American and a woman in the United States Constitution. As an educated African-American woman, Wells discovered the new provisions within the document would not protect an African-American woman from being manhandled by raced white men. Who battled for the African-American woman?


Wells was asked to move to another section of the train. Wells, was told to move into a smoking section. Wells must have understood that this demand was not only an insult as a citizen but as a threat against her as a woman. Wells refused to move and was thrown off the train. This light bulb moment would illuminate a different path for the teacher. Wells began a life time crusade against not only discrimination against African-Americans but for legal protection for African-American women.

Wells would have to channel both former crusaders Sojourner Truth and Maria Stewart. It could not be left up to raced whites as Sojourner Truth pointed out, in defining womanhood when she asked "Ain't I A Woman ?" in order to be acknowledged by raced white males. Stewart stated that it was up to the African-American woman to define what it meant to be a woman. Wells would have to fuse the two together to craft her battle plan.

Wells began publishing a newspaper, the Free Speech to tell about the injustices committed against her as an African-American woman. This same newspaper would later chronicle the horrible lynching that were occurring in the south. Wells newspaper documented the number of lynching’s that were occurring under the passive Separate but Equal doctrine. One of her reports an incident of lynching involving her friends and another the torturing of a man accused of raping a raced white young female. The lynching was a public event with witnesses collecting souvenirs.

Wells reports showcased the South total disregard for human life. Wells learned through her travels to other countries, sympathy in her outrages against the south. Wells found a listening ear from the women in Britain. Britain had offer emancipated African-Americans freedom long before President Lincoln. The south was losing many African-Americans fleeing from the south to both Britain and Canada. Well suggested that African-Americans leave Memphis and go elsewhere to live.

Women in other countries were surprised to leave that Wells did not find support for her causes in fighting against injustices from other women in the United States. Wells reported that America's woman movement did not include African-American women. Highlighting the hypocrisy within the pious women movement fight for equality for all women, Wells pointed out the non existence of African-American women membership. In fact, the United States woman movement was a battle about class among raced white women. A class warfare as to which raced white women could enter the sphere of true womanhood and be classed a "lady". These women would be allowed to enter society or sororities to mate and marry America's patriotic and prominent males.

Wells writings about these contradictions in America angered her opponents and her newspaper was destroyed. Wells had to do what she was advocating for others to do. Wells had to flee to the north for her own safety. Wells continued her crusade against racial injustices by helping organize the NAACP. Her voice would replace her newspaper as she ran for political office. This would provide Wells an opportunity to rally others to the bully pulpit to fight for the legal rights of all African-Americans.

Wells life journey reminds us of the outrage years later when mild mannered Rosa Parks, a woman, refused to give her seat to a raced white male and remained in her seat.