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A MInd of Her Own

© Dorothy Hill

The future did not seem particularly promising for the girl child born to Jim and Lizzie Wells in the summer of 1862. After all, it was Holly Springs, Mississippi, and the baby called Ida belonged to someone else. She was a slave just like her parents.

Arguments over slavery had errupted into a war, a Civil War, several months before. Holly Springs changed hands many times before the war ended, but, when it was over, three-year-old Ida Wells was free even if she didn't know at the time what the word meant.

Jim and Lizzie knew that just being free was not enough if their children were not educated. Education had been denied to slaves, and their lack of an education still kept former slaves at the mercy of others. To be sure that their children experienced the fruits of freedom, the parents saw that they went to school. Lizzie went along so that she, too, could learn to read and write. While no one knows whether Jim was literate, it is known that he served as a trustee for the new school for the former slaves that is today known as Rust College.

Everything was going along fine until 1878. While Ida was visiting her grandmother in the country, a yellow fever epidemic struck Holly Springs. Ida hoped her family would be among the many refugees who left the town to escape the fever, but that was not the case. Jim, a master carpenter, chose to remain in town to make coffins. By the end of September, Jim and Lizzie Wells were counted among the dead.

Sixteen-year-old Ida listened as concerned family friends made the decisions about what was to be done with her and her five younger brothers and sisters. As plans were being made to divide the orphaned children among different families, Ida may have remembered the stories her parents told of families being split by slavery. Ida was sure that separation was not what her parents would have wanted for the family.

Ida than made a decision that would characterize the rest of her life. She made up her mind that she would keep her family together as long as she could. That day Ida changed from a young girl to the head of a large household. Ida got a job teaching in a small rural school. She hired someone to help take care of her younger siblings while she was at work.

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