Ida Bell Wells was born into slavery in 1862. After the end of the Civil Wars, Ida’s parents, advocates in Reconstructionist politics, expressed the importance of education to their eldest daughter. Ida attended Rust College until she was expelled following a dispute with the university president. She lived with her grandmother until a yellow fever epidemic took her parents and she was left to raise her younger brother and sister.
She took a teaching job in her hometown of Holly Springs, Mississippi and later in Memphis. In Memphis, Ida filed a lawsuit against a train company for unfair treatment. She claimed she was thrown off a train despite having a first-class ticket. The suit was found in her favor, but overturned by a federal court.
Ida began to focus on white mob violence after an acquaintance was the victim of a lynching. She circulated self-published pamphlets and wrote newspaper articles that raised awareness of lynchings. Her writing enraged locals who burned he press and ran Ida out of Memphis. She eventually settled in Chicago.
Ida bonded with other African-American leaders in a boycott of the 1893 Chicago Worlds Fair. She called out exposition organizers for their negative portrayal of African-American community. She also continued her campaign against lynching, spreading her message on an international level. Her public criticism of suffragette groups and their disregard for the issue of lynching brought her ridicule from women’s organizations. Unfettered, she still remained active in the women’s rights movement, eventually founding the National Association of Colored Women’s Club. During World War I, Ida was labeled a “race agitator” and placed under government surveillance.
Ida was also a co-founder of the NAACP, although her name is missing as an official founder.
Ida passed away in 1931 at the age of 68. In 2019, a new middle school in Washington, DC was named in her honor. In 2020, she was awarded a posthumous Pulitzer Prize. 2025 will see her likeness on a US quarter in the final year of the US Mint’s honoring of significant American women.