IDA B. WELLS: Civil Rights Activist

"The city of Memphis has demonstrated that neither character nor standing avails the Negro if he dares to protect himself against the white man or become his rival. There is nothing we can do about the lynching now, as we are outnumbered and without arms. The white mob could help itself to ammunition, but the order was rigidly enforced against the selling of guns to Negroes. There is therefore only one thing left that we can do: Save our money and leave a town which will neither protect our lives and property, nor give us a fair trial in the course, but take us out and murder us in cold blood when accused by white persons."

Two months after the lynching, six thousand out of thirty thousand blacks moved from Memphis. Wells stayed in Memphis, determined to fight against the racism and discrimination. She began researching the history of lynching in order to be better informed to combat it. She visited southern cities to investigate lynch cases and wrote about her findings in her newspaper. Angered by her writings, a white mob broke into her office, while she was away, and destroyed it. After this incident, she moved to New York, became part owner of the "New York Age" newspaper, and continued her campaign against lynching.

In 1893, Ida moved to Chicago where she married Ferdinand L. Barnett, a successful lawyer and owner of a newspaper. They had four children, Charles, Herman, Ida Jr. and Alfreda. In addition to working as an anti-lynching crusader, Ida Wells-Barnett was a devoted wife and mother.

In her newspaper articles, Wells exposed the brutality of lynching and fought to have the perpetrators prosecuted. She traveled around the U.S. and abroad, lecturing on the cruelties of lynching and protesting against all forms of racial discrimination. On March 25, 1931, Ida B. Wells-Barnett died in Chicago. She became known as the mother of the civil rights movement and the pioneer of the anti-lynching crusade. In 1990, an Ida B. Wells postage stamp was issued in her honor.

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