Early Crusader For Freedom

Ida B. Wells-Barnett was one of the most celebrated African American civil rights leaders of the twentieth century. Called controversial, uncompromising, a fierce defender, a lonely warrior, and a crusader for justice, Wells-Barnett gained a national and international reputation for her antilynching campaign at the beginning of the twentieth century. She is credited with being one of the first to bring accurate statistical accounts of this “southern horror” to the public eye. Wells-Barnett was an accomplished investigative journalist, newspaper publisher, clubwoman, and settlement house worker. She was a founding member of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People and the Alpha Suffrage Club, the first African American women's suffrage organization in Chicago. Wells-Barnett was active in civic, legal, and civil rights affairs in Chicago and nationally. Her activism and her quest for social betterment for African Americans mark her as a significant figure in American social welfare history. (Duster, 145-149)

Born in 1862 in Holly Springs, Mississippi, to Jim and Elizabeth Bell, Ida was the oldest of eight children. She grew up in a home where discipline, education, and self-determination were valued. Ida learned a great deal from her father, Jim Wells, a master carpenter in the post-Civil War South; he lost his job with a major contractor when he did not vote for White supremacy and the Democratic ticket. He eventually opened his own business and was recognized as a leader in the local African American community.

Ida received her early education at Rust College. When she was 16, tragedy struck the Bell family. Both parents and a baby brother died when the yellow fever epidemic hit Holly Springs in 1878. Rather than separate as a family, Wells became a schoolteacher and supported the surviving members of her family. After passing qualifying exams in 1884, she ...