Ida Bell Wells-Barnett was an educator, an early leader in the Civil Rights Movement and an investigative journalist. Her contribution towards Civil Rights includes being a co-founder of the NAACP. She dedicated her life to fighting against violence and prejudice towards African American people. Wells co-owned and wrote for the Memphis Free Speech and Headlight newspaper. Her writings were carried by black newspapers across the nation. Wells-Barnett was active in the “Women’s Rights and the Women’s Suffrage Movements. She once sued a railroad company for making her give up her seat in a passenger car. Wells won the suit, which was overturned by the Tennessee Supreme Court. She was also an elementary school teacher, but was dismissed from teaching after writing articles criticizing the deplorable conditions within black schools. During the 1890s, Ida Wells-Barnett wrote on the lynching in the United States, which was published in articles and pamphlets. She exposed the brutality of lynching, and analyzed its sociology, arguing that whites used lynching to terrorize African Americans in the South because they represented economic and political competition, and thus a threat to the white power structure.
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Church Affiliation:Grace Presbyterian Church
Role in the Movement:Ida Bell Wells-Barnett was an educator, an early leader in the Civil Rights Movement and an investigative journalist.
Birth Place:Hollysprings, MS
Born Date:July 16, 1862
Deceased Date:March 25, 1931
Place Lived as Adult:Memphis, TN; Chicago, IL
Church Location:Church, IL