Ida B. Wells

Ida B. Wells was an African American journalist, abolitionist, and feminist who led an anti-lynching crusade in the United States in the 1890s.

James Wells, her father, helped start Shaw University (now Rust College), a school for newly freed enslaved people in Holly Springs, Mississippi. It was at Shaw that Wells received her early education.

Wells wrote about race and politics in the South while working as a journalist and publisher. A lynching in Memphis in 1892 led her to begin an anti-lynching campaign. She researched and reported on lynchings, published an examination of lynchings in America, and led a protest in Washington, D.C., calling for reforms. She helped establish several civil rights and women’s rights organizations, including the National Association of Colored Women’s Clubs and the NAACP.

In 2020, Wells was awarded a Pulitzer Special Citation “for her outstanding and courageous reporting on the horrific and vicious violence against African Americans during the era of lynching.”

Wells left a legacy of social and political heroism – she fought against prejudice, no matter what potential dangers she faced.