Our American History's Champion!

#EmbraceEquity #EmbraceEquity2023 : Ida B. Wells-Barnett

???????????There were so many inspiring people that made up, what we now know today as, our American History. And raising just one name can almost feel like an injustice to those other way-makers. But today I will raise the name of this one champion, a businesswoman, investigative journalist, and advocate for the rights of people of color. Ida B. Wells originally, later married and known as Ida B. Wells-Barnett, was that champion! Today, we can see the reflections and echoes of her advocacy in movements like Black Lives Matter. Ida B. Wells wrote and advocated against all types of domestic terrorism against people of color. Her legacy is still at the forefront today for changes in our society!

???????????The story of her life is a unique one. That is for certain. “Wells was born [at the back end of slavery] on July 16, 1862, in Holly Springs Mississippi, to her enslaved parents, James Wells, and Elizabeth Warrenton” (Ross 121). Her entire life spanned 69 years. She and her family were emancipated, though, when she was but six months old. Her parents, like other freed slaves, had no resources or land ownership so they became employees of, their former masters, the Spires. James Wells was mulatto, as he was the offspring of his slave mother Peggy, and her white master. The wife of the said master was unable to bear children, so he chose Peggy to create his family. James would become a Carpenter and be traded to another plantation owner where he would fall in love with Elizabeth. She was, at that time, a slave who worked in the Spires plantation kitchen. Ida was the first of their eight children! And although that is ginormous by today's standards, it was common back then for a couple to have anywhere from five to thirteen children in total.

???????????During her teen years, yellow fever was a sweeping health crisis. That epidemic claimed the lives of some family members, including her parents. Ida, with the help of her grandmother Peggy, had a personal responsibility to her family and so she raised her surviving siblings. She said, “I thought [about] my crippled sister, [and] of the smaller children all down to the nine-month-old baby brother. I am the oldest of seven living children and someone has to look after them” (Wells-Barnett 11-12). She had been educated by women when she was younger. So, as a teen, she became the caregiver as well as the teacher to her family. When that Holly Springs chapter concluded Ida made her way to Tennessee to live with an aunt. She then became a schoolteacher in Shelby County.

???????????One pivotal Memphis moment in Ida’s life happened when she was twenty-one years of age. She was on a train that had departed Memphis and was headed out of town. “I took a seat in the lady’s coach of the train as usual” (Wells-Barnett 18). Wells was confronted about not being in the railcar for the blacks, which was also commonly used as the car that allowed smoking. So many “black women were particularly distressed by their treatment in public transportation. Segregation as well as inferior seating [arrangements indeed] were a very public humiliation. First-class coaches were called ‘ladies’ cars.’ So, the inability to sit in them was labeling someone as NOT a lady” (Edwards 24-25). Ida was told to move, and she appropriately refused. She was then removed by employees from the train altogether. She would later sue and win locally, but the decision was later repealed at the Supreme Court level. Ida was never afraid to go against the grain of what white society seemed to be trying to create, which were racial lines for all public sectors.

???????????People of color were soon involved in both the world of politics as well as business ownership. In the realm of politics, men were being elected to Congress and local offices. By this time, Ida was a productive journalist in a male-dominated profession. Ida “felt that she could express herself more through [her] writing than she ever could in [her previous] teaching profession. She stated, ‘I wrote in a plain and common-sense way on the things which concerned our people’” (Ida B. Wells: A Chicago Stories Special Documentary). Ida traveled a lot and contributed to numerous black publications and newspapers under her pen name “Iola.” Often, she would encourage southern people of color to move farther north as discrimination was less prevalent. Journalism was a true calling in her life.

???????????Wells also took on very tough topics and societal issues concerning domestic terrorism from racist whites targeting people of color. Lynchings had become the new normal as mobs seemed to murder folks at their accusation leisure. And to be clear lynching referred to unjust killings, not just hangings. People of color, businessmen, and common folk alike were murdered simply off of accusation of a crime. Many were beaten and gutted and left in fields. Many were hanged upside-down and brutalized before being set on fire. There was no due process for them. And there were seemingly no repercussions for the killers.

Ida began investigative work and publishing her findings by keeping up with the changing numbers on these hate crimes as she traveled. So, folks knew and could read up on how people of color were being treated in certain areas versus other areas. This was only one of her social responsibilities: to publish anti-lynching works that were both earth-shaking and courageous writings for the betterment of all present and future Americans. To be an instrument for cultural transformation and equal justice!

As if she had not done enough in life already, Ida would later advocate for women's voting rights. My last quote from Ida B. Wells-Barnett is her discussing her role among other Illinois women, before they all marched in the 1913 Washington D.C. suffrage parade, in their stand for voting rights. She said, “if [we] Illinois women do not take a stand now in this great democratic parade, then colored women are lost. I am not taking this stand because I wish for recognition. I am doing it for the future benefit of my whole race” (DuBois 378). This is who she was folks. She was an unstoppable force for equality. Ida B. Wells-Barnett proved to be a sincere heart of what American freedom should look like today. And we have it better because she existed.

Works Cited

DuBois, Ellen?C. Suffrage: Women's Long Battle for the Vote. Simon & Schuster,?2020.

Edwards, Linda?M. To Keep the Waters Troubled: The Life of Ida B. Wells. New York, NY: Oxford University Press,?1998.

"Ida B. Wells: A Chicago Stories Special Documentary." YouTube, WTTW Chicago: Chicago's Premiere PBS Station, 17?July?2021, www.youtube.com/watch?v=ML8XiKVStWQ&t=6s. Accessed 10?Mar.?2023.

Ross, Michael?E. She Takes a Stand: 16 Fearless Activists Who Have Changed the World. Chicago Review Press,?2015.

Wells-Barnett, Ida?B. Crusade for Justice: The Autobiography of Ida B. Wells. Chicago, University of Chicago Press,?1970.

Picture Credit

"Ida B. Wells | A Chicago Stories Special."?WTTW Chicago's premiere PBS

station, 5?May?2022, interactive.wttw.com/Chicago-stories/Ida-b-wells. Accessed

10?Mar.?2023.

Pexels.com