To understand the major power of news media , look at the career ofIda B. Wells . Her investigations into rabble lynchings in the South put the barbaric practice under national examination for the first metre . Even when she became the objective of last threats , she never stopped campaign for gender and racial equality . Ida Wells ( or Wells - Barnett ) is still conceive one of the most influential figure in journalism virtually a century after her decease . Here are some facts you should recognize about the initiate reporter .
1. Ida Wells was born into slavery.
Ida Bell Wellswas brook in Holly Springs , Mississippi , on July 16 , 1862 — one year into theCivil War . Though she was n’t yet 2 years old when the Emancipation Proclamation freed her family , she grew up hearing write up of slavery from her parents , Lizzie and James . Her father’sbackground in carpentryallowed him to quash life as a sharecrop farmer . The Wellses got involved in politics during the Reconstruction Era and teach their children the time value of Education Department . When she was 16 , Ida ’s parent and younger comrade decease of yellow febricity , leave her in charge of her survive young siblings .
2. She became a teacher to support her siblings.
Though she received some highereducationas a teenager , Ida was thrust to put her academic vocation on wait . Her family was in danger of splitting up and going into foster attention succeed the death of their parent , and she had to find oeuvre to keep everyone together . Shelied about her ageto get a job teaching at a local school . In 1882 , she and her youthful siblings went to live with an aunty in Memphis , Tennessee , where she continued to learn and resumed her education .
3. Wells refused to give up her seat decades before Rosa Parks.
Wells ’s lifespan - long dedication to activism can be traced to a train ride she take from Memphis to Nashvillein 1883 . Though she had buy a first - class ticket , she was asked to move to the smoke car where mordant rider were expected to sit . Wells resist and was forcibly removed from the power train , but not beforebiting the music director . Wells successfully sued the railroad troupe and won$500 in harm , but the decision was quickly turn over . The experience pushed her to a career in journalism .
4. She co-owned a Memphis newspaper.
While teach in Memphis , Wells began writing for church paper under the pen nameIola . Her clause targeted racist institution — including the schooling board that employed her , which wassegregated . With the money she saved up from her didactics position , she became part owner of the Black - run publicationMemphis Free Speech and Headlightin1889 . As the paper ’s editor she was give a gravid platform to fight for racial equality .
5. Wells risked her life reporting lynchings.
Lynching became a personal issue for Wells when her three Black Quaker were targeted by a clean mobin 1892 . Calvin McDowell , Thomas Moss , and Henry Stewart ran a grocery storage in Memphis , and their succeeder drew ire from the white owners of competing businesses down the street . A group of white men face up the dark entrepreneur , leading to a violent altercation . McDowell , Moss , and Stewart were arrested and later killed when a ring ruin into their jail cellphone to abduct and lynch them .
Wells spend month investigating lynchings in the South following the incident , often putting herself in risk by going to the site of the killings . She published her finding in the pamphlet “ Southern revulsion , ” which argue that lynchings were a reaction to thethreat of Black successrather than a deterrent against Black men despoil livid women , as was often claimed . Her 1895 bookA Red Record — the first statistical report on lynch ever recorded — expanded on this thesis .
Wells also covered sexual and ring violence against dim women — a group that continues to be left out of conversation about the lynching era . She report on female lynching victim likeEliza Woodsand revealed that Black woman were more likely to be raped by lily-white men than snowy women were by Black men . InThe Red Record , she wrote , “ That knightliness which is ‘ most tender refer the laurels of women ’ can hope for footling respect from the genteel Earth , when it confines itself only to women who happen to be white . ”
6. Her newspaper office was vandalized.
Wells put her life at risk to report these stories . While she was away inNew York City , an angry mob broke into the office of theMemphis Free Speechand vandalized it . Her business cooperator fled the city and the paper was forced to shutter . Wells was rattled enough to stay in New York , but she did n’t turn back covering lynching in the South .
In addition to being a talented writer , Wells was a talented speaker , and she launched a talk go that take her around the northerly states and to the UK . While in Britain she established theBritish Anti - Lynching Societyin 1894 .
7. She married a fellow journalist.
In 1895 , Wells married Chicago lawyer and newspaper editor Ferdinand L. Barnett and started going by Ida Wells - Barnett . She continued her news media work as a married fair sex , contribute to local papers like her husband’sChicago Conservator . She also served as repository of the National Afro - American Council , participate in the foundingof the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People ( NAACP ) , andfoundedthe Negro Fellowship League and the Alpha Suffrage Club in between raising her child .
8. Ida B. Wells received a posthumous Pulitzer Prize.
Ida Wells - Barnett died in 1931 at age 68 , but her contributions to journalism and Blackcivil rightscontinue to be recognized today . In 2020 , she was awardeda posthumous Pulitzer“for her outstanding and courageous reporting on the horrific and poisonous ferocity against African Americans during the earned run average of lynching . ” The swag came with a $ 50,000 charitable donation “ in support of her mission . ” The exact recipient has yet to be herald .
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