Ida B. Wells Essay - 2,143 words

Ida B. Wells Ida Wells-Barnett was born in Holly Springs, Mississippi in 1862. She was the oldest of eight children. Ida was born of slaves, but her parents were able to support eight children. Her mother was a famous cook, and her father was a skilled carpenter. When Ida was only fourteen, an epidemic of Yellow Fever swept though Holly Spring and killed her parents and youngest sibling.


She kept her family together by securing a job teaching. Ida managed to continue her education by attending near by Rust College. Then she moved to Memphis to live with her aunt and help raise her youngest sisters. It was in Memphis where Ida first began to fight. In 1884, she was asked by the conductor of the Chesapeake and Ohio Railroad Company to give up her seat on the train to a white man, and ordered her to move into the smoking car, which was already crowed with other passengers. She refused to move.


Then they tried to drag her out of the seat, but the moment he caught hold of her arms. She bit him. Then he tried it again, but he failed. Since he could not drag her out by himself. Therefore, he went up front and got a baggage man and another man to help him. Of course, they succeeded.


Wells was removed from the train and other passengers-all whites-applauded. When Ida returned to Memphis, she hired an attorney to sue the railroad. She won her case, but the Railroad Company appealed to the Supreme Court of Tennessee and it reversed the lawsuit. After that, Ida worked tirelessly, and fearlessly to overturn injustices against women and other people of color. She married the editor of one of Chicagos black newspapers. She wrote, I was married in the city of Chicago to Attorney F.L Barnett, and retired to what I thought was the privacy of a home.


She didnt stay retired long and continued writing and organizing. In 1906, Ida joined with William E.B Dubois and others to further the Niagara Movement. The founding members of the National Association for Colored people (NAACP). Ida was also among the few black leaders to oppose Booker T. Washington, and his strategies. She was viewed as one of the most radicals who organized the NAACP.


Wells Barnett decided to run for the Illinois State legislature, which made her one of the first black women to run for public office in the United States. Ida B. Wells was a woman dedicated to a cause, a cause to prevent hundreds of thousands of people from being murdered by lynching. Lynching is defined as to take the law into its own hands and kill someone in punishment for a crime or a presumed crime. Ida B. Wells back round made her a logical spokesperson against lynching. She drew on many experiences throughout her life to aid in her crusade.


Her position as a black woman, however, affected her credibility both in and out of America in a few different ways. Her parents nurtured the background of this crusader to make her a great spokesperson. She also held positions throughout her life that allowed her to learn a lot about lynching. She was fueled by her natural drive to search for the truth. Wells was born into slavery in Holly Springs, Mississippi. Her father, James Wells, was a carpenter and her mother was a cook.


After the Civil War, her parents became politically active. Her father was known as race man, a term given to African Americans involved in the leadership of the community. He was a local businessperson, a mason, and a member of the Board of Trustees of Shaw University. Both parents provided Ida with strong role models. They worked hard and held places of respect in the community as forward-looking people. James and Elizabeth (mother) Wells instilled their daughter a keen sense of duty to God, family, and community.


Idas background was strengthened when she became part owner, editor, and writer for a weekly paper, The Free Speech. This paper based in Memphis, Tennessee allowed Ida to learn, by research, the details of lynching. Her energetic campaign for truth and justice gave her a lot of attention to fuel her crusade. All these factors support the fact that her background made her an ample spokes person for the anti-lynching campaign. Adding to her credibility, personal experiences also gave her more of a drive to continue her crusade. She became a leading community activist through a sequence of events.


In 1884, Ida was riding a train in a first class car, when she was asked to move to the smoking car. When she refused, two conductors tried to physically move her. She instead got off the train and filed a discrimination lawsuit. The lawsuit was initially won, but the Tennessee Supreme Court overturned the verdict. After the train incident, in 1889, Ida went to The Free Speech paper; this is where her most promising worked developed. In 1892, three of her friends were brutally killed during a lynching.


This one particular event opened the eyes of Wells and prompted her to write some of her most controversial works yet. However, this type of writing got the Free Speech office ransacked and destroyed. The other owner of the Free Speech barely escaped with his life, but he carried the message that if Ida were to show her face ever again in Tennessee she would be killed. Now with all this ammunition based on personal experience, even as an African American woman, she had gained credibility to be able to speak with authority. As Ida B. Wells was going through this, it was at the same time that all women, black and white, were experiencing suffrage. There was a striking similarity between slavery and woman oppression.


The bottom line was that women had no authority. An example of this is that even if a woman worked outside the home, all her earnings would legally go to the head of the household. However, Wells emerged as one of the best known of these new women that chose to speak out. People were beginning to listen to these accusations of unlawful lynching, but more impressive was the fact that non-Americans were starting to listen. These non-Americans interests were peaked because the United States, as a world power, tried to silence all issues such as lynching and mob violence. Now, these issues were becoming known, writers from other countries contacted Ida. Wells received an invitation from Isabella Fyvie Mayo, a Scottish writer, to come speak about lynching in Great Brita ...................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................

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Essay Tags: african american, american, african, american women, lynching

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