Who was Ida B. Wells?

According to Google, during Black History Month, a lot of Georgians are asking: Who was Ida B. Wells?

It’s a good question. Thanks to mass media, most of us are familiar with the leaders of the 20th century civil rights movement. If you’re an Atlantan, you probably drive down streets and interstates named for some of them. But the pioneers of the movement — the people who worked to build a new world in the first few generations after slavery — can feel a bit far removed.

That’s a shame, because figures like Ida B. Wells are worth knowing.

Born into slavery in Holly Springs, Mississippi, on July 16, 1862, Wells was freed by the emancipation proclamation, though, like many, she would have to wait until the end of the war to taste freedom. She was educated at Rust University, a freedmen’s school in her home town, and went on to teach at a country school at just 14. In 1884, Wells moved to Memphis, Tennessee, to teach and later attended Fisk University in nearby Nashville.

In 1891, using the pen name Iola, Wells began writing newspaper articles that criticized the quality of education available to Black children. When her teaching contract was not renewed, the Wells decided to pursue journalism full time and purchased an interest in the Memphis Free Speech, a prominent African American paper published by Reverend Taylor Nightingale of Beale Street Baptist Church.

In 1888, “a white mob ‘liberated’ the county from black rule,” and an era of lawless violence began. In just a single year, three of Wells’ friends were lynched. She quickly began an editorial campaign against lynching. In response, a white mob ransacked the newspaper’s office and destroyed the building and everything in it.

Wells also organized anti-lynching societies and worked tirelessly to publicize the violence to audiences in the north and around the world. She remained active in supporting civil rights for the rest of her days. While many urged caution, Wells insisted, “The way to right wrongs is to turn the light of truth upon them.”

From 1898 to 1902, she served as the secretary of the National Afro-American Council, and later helped found the NAACP, where she served on the executive committee. In 1913, Wells founded one of the country’s first Black women’s suffrage groups to ensure their voices were heard in the growing women’s suffrage movement.