The Life of a Crusader: Ida B. Wells-Barnett Wandy Ojea United States History II Mr. Ickles In an era where women are finally speaking out about the injustices that they face in society, Ida B. Wells paved the path for other women’s rights activists in the battle against sexism and racism. As a public speaker, journalist, and teacher, Wells was able to share her ideas and impact thousands. Ida B. Wells-Barnett (better known as Ida B. Wells) was a women’s rights activist, civil rights activist, and an anti-lynching crusader. Despite having to face many obstacles, she had always had strong opinions that she believed the world should hear. Ida B. Wells was born into slavery on July 16th of 1862 in Holly Springs, Mississippi. When she was sixteen years old, her parents, James and Lizzie Wells, and one of her siblings were killed by the Yellow Fever outbreak. This left Wells to take care of her other siblings. Having attended Shaw University (now Rust College) she had a basic education which is all you needed to be a teacher so Wells lied to a school and told them that she was eighteen so that they would give her a …show more content…
Wells took her seat in first class on a train from Memphis to Nashville when the train’s crew tried to make her move her seat to the train car for African Americans even though she paid for a first class ticket. Wells sued the company and won but this decision was later overruled. This experience was a turning point in Ida B. Wells life because it made her realize that she had a voice and that people need to hear it. After this she began writing about racial and political issues in the south. Ida B. Wells often felt like she lacked a sufficient amount of education, still, she wrote for free in church newspapers. She took on the name “Iola” when she was writing because she felt that it was a name southerners could relate to. After some time, Wells became the proud owner of the “Memphis Free Speech and
Ida B. Wells could not have been more ordinary. She was born an urban slave during the Civil War. Her parents, both of mixed blood, were able to send her to Rust University where she would develop a stubborn personality that would
Susan B. Anthony was a prominent women’s rights activist and a social reformer. She dedicated her life to spread awareness of the danger and unfairness of social inequalities and slavery. She helped creating or advocating many US and International organizations. She lobbied the creation of laws to protect the rights of citizens regardless of their ethnicity or gender. She was "one of the most loved and hated women in the country. "Her opponents often described her as "nsexed, an unnatural creature that did not function as a true woman, one who devoted her life to a husband” (Barry). She passed away
The life of Anna Julia Cooper (1858-1964) affords rich opportunities for studying the developments in African-American and Ameri can life during the century following emancipation. Like W.E.B. DuBois, Cooper's life is framed by especially momentous years in U.S. history: the final years of slavery and the climactic years of the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960's. Cooper's eclect ic and influential career mirrored the times. Although her life was privileged in relation to those of the majority of African-Americans, Cooper shared in the experiences of wrenching change, elevating promise, and heart-breaking disappointment. She was accordingly able to be an organic and committed intellectual whose eloquent speech was ensnarled in her concern for the future of African-Americans.
Susan B. anthony wasn’t as big as Martin Luther King Jr. or Abraham Lincoln but she nothing short of inspiring. One of her greatest speeches was Women's Rights to Suffrage in 1873. She was an agent for the Anti-Slavery Society and collected petitions when she was only 17. She was also president of the Congressional Union for Women’s Suffrage Organization (CUWO). She also helped with Fredrick Douglas and his situation.
Ida was had purchased a first class bus ticket but she was later asked to move to the African American section of the train. Ida refused to move and continued to fight with the crew until she was effected from the train and but a man on the hand. Ida sued the railroad and won a $500 settlement in a circuit court case (Biography.com). Later the Supreme Court of Tennessee overturned the verdict. This chain of events caused Ida to write about her experience. She wrote many articles for African Americans and their struggles in everyday life. In 1889 Ida became a partial owner of the Memphis Free Spe...
Barnett, Ida B., and Ida B. Barnett. Southern horrors and other writings: the anti-lynching campaign of Ida B. Wells, 1892-1900. Boston, MA: Bedford Books, 1997.
If asked to name one person involved in the fight for social equalities would Susan B. Anthony come to mind? Susan’s passion for social reform began on her family farm in Adams, Massachusetts. On the fifteenth of February in 1820, Susan Brownell Anthony was born to a local cotton mill owner and his wife. She was the second eldest of eight children born to the Quaker family. It was in this Quaker family were her passion for equal rights grew. In the Quaker religion women are treated equal to men before God. According to Sara Ann McGill (2017) author of “Susan B. Anthony”, around age seventeen Anthony’s family moved to Battenville, New York only to lose their home to bankruptcy and move to Rochester,
The south was ripe with lynching, riots, white supremacists against African Americans fighting for equality. It was through these altering moments in history Ida B. Wells made a difference in our nation. Her unparalleled circumstances and unique individuality from the other African Americans allowed her to become more aware of her social, economic and political surroundings. Through triumphs and battles, she prevailed and did not allow her hardships to diminish her ambition.
Susan B. Anthony was an influential spokesperson in the early struggle for women rights in the United States. She laid the groundwork for every right women demanded and was well known from other women activist, was her belief for the need of voting among women. Her belief came from her temperance movement in 1852 where she demanded for women to vote against liquor interest. Susan B. Anthony was...
Susan Brownell Anthony was considered one of the first women activist. She fought for the abolition of slavery, African American rights, labor rights and women’s rights. Susan Anthony fought for women’s rights by speaking up and campaigning for women and serval others around the United States. She devoted her time and attention on the needs of women. Ms. Anthony helped reform the law to benefit women and improve our conditions, and encouraged the eliminations of laws that only benefited the men of our country. Susan B. Anthony helped change the life of African Americans and women in the United States with her morals and influential beliefs in equality.
Ida B. Wells (1862-1931) was a newspaper editor and journalist who went on to lead the American anti-lynching crusade. Working closely with both African-American community leaders and American suffragists, Wells worked to raise gender issues within the "Race Question" and race issues within the "Woman Question." Wells was born the daughter of slaves in Holly Springs, Mississippi, on July 16, 1862. During Reconstruction, she was educated at a Missouri Freedman's School, Rust University, and began teaching school at the age of fourteen. In 1884, she moved to Memphis, Tennessee, where she continued to teach while attending Fisk University during summer sessions. In Tennessee, especially, she was appalled at the poor treatment she and other African-Americans received. After she was forcibly removed from her seat for refusing to move to a "colored car" on the Chesapeake & Ohio Railroad, the Tennessee Supreme Court rejected her suit against the railroad for violating her civil rights in 1877. This event and the legal struggle that followed it, however, encouraged Wells to continue to oppose racial injustice toward African-Americans. She took up journalism in addition to school teaching, and in 1891, after she had written several newspaper articles critical of the educational opportunities afforded African-American students, her teaching contract was not renewed. Effectively barred from teaching, she invested her savings in a part-inte...
Susan B. Anthony is the most well known name in women's rights from the 1800s. Most people who are not familiar with the history of this time are aware of Susan's reputation and nearly everyone of my generation has seen and held a Susan B. Anthony silver dollar. For these reasons I was greatly surprised to learn that Elizabeth Cady Stanton was the original women's rights movement spokeswoman and Susan B. Anthony her protégé.
Elizabeth “Bessie” Coleman was born on January 26, 1892 to Susan and George Coleman who had a large family in Texas. At the time of Bessie’s birth, her parents had already been married for seventeen years and already had nine children, Bessie was the tenth, and she would later have twelve brothers and sisters. Even when she was small, Bessie had to deal with issues about race. Her father was of African American and Cherokee Indian decent, and her mother was black which made it difficult from the start for her to be accepted. Her parents were sharecroppers and her life was filled with renter farms and continuous labor. Then, when Bessie was two, her father decided to move himself and his family to Waxahacie, Texas. He thought that it would offer more opportunities for work, if he were to live in a cotton town.
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 businessman, 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.