Ida Barnett Wells was born a slave on July 16, 1862 in Holly Springs, Mississippi. She was the oldest child of eight children for her parents. Approximately six months after Ida B. Wells was conceived, African American slaves were ordered to be free by the Union, thanks to the Emancipation Proclamation. However, since Ida Wells’ family resided in Mississippi, they still were facing racial prejudices and were confided by discriminatory rules and practices (pbs.org, 2002).
Ida Barnett Wells’ parents were extremely involved in the Republican Party throughout the Reconstruction. Unfortunately, they died in a yellow fever outbreak in the late 1870s as well as one of Ida’s sibling. This catastrophe unfortunately left Ida B. Wells to take care of her other brothers and sisters. However, Ida Wells was once a student at Rust College, where she obtained her early education, unfortunately she stopped going to school at the age of sixteen (Biography.com Editors, 2016).
Moreover, Ida Wells and her sisters migrated to Memphis, Tennessee to reside with her aunt. Her brothers on the other hand stayed in Mississippi and worked as carpenter apprentices. Furthermore, in Memphis, Tennessee, Ida B. Wells lied about her actual age and became a teacher. Nevertheless, Ida B. Wells, continued her education at Fisk University, which is located in Nashville (Biography.com
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Wells used to travel by train from Memphis, Tennessee to Nashville. However, one day in May of 1884, Wells purchased a first class train ticket to go to Nashville. Ida B. Wells was upset when the train crew demanded her to move to the car that was for African Americans, and refused on principle. However, as they moved Ida Wells by extreme, she angrily bit one of the white men on his arm. Ida Wells eventually sued the railroad and she won approximately five hundred dollars settlement in the circuit court. Unfortunately, the conclusion was later overturned by the Supreme Court in Tennessee (pbs.org,
Hi, my name is Ida Bell Wells-Barnett also known as Ida B. Wells. I was born on July 16, 1862, in Holly Springs, Mississippi. My father, James Wells, worked as a carpenter. My mother, Elizabeth “Izzy Bell” Warrenton, worked as a cook. I was born into slavery, owned by Mr.Bollings who treated us fairly well. I was the oldest daughter out of 9 siblings. My father was involved with the Freedmen's Aid Society and helped start Shaw University, known as Rust College, for the newly freed slaves. I received my early schooling there until age 16. In 1878, both my parents and one of my siblings died in a yellow fever outbreak. I cared for my siblings and got a job as a teacher. In 1882, I attended Fisk University in Nashville. I took college courses
Ida Minerva Tarbell was born in Erie, Pennsylvania on November 5, 1857 (Lowrie). She was the daughter of Esther and Franklin Tarbell (Lowrie). At the age of three, Ida was moved to Titusville, Pennsylvania with her family (Lowrie). Tarbell's mother took a teaching job and her father became an oil producer and refiner in their new town (Lowrie). As King wrote, “her father's business, along with those of many other small businessmen, was adversely affected by the South Improvement Company scheme between the railroads and larger oil interests.” Tarbell stayed in Titusville and finished high school there (Lowrie). She then studied at Allegheny College in 1876, where she graduated in 1880, the only woman in her class (Lowrie).
Ida B. Wells-Barnett dedicated her life to social justice and equality. She devoted her tremendous energies to building the foundations of African-American progress in business, politics, and law. Wells-Barnett was a key participant in the formation of the National Association of Colored Women as well as the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP). She spoke eloquently in support of Marcus Garvey and the Universal Negro Improvement Association. The legacies of these organizations have been tremendous and her contribution to each was timely and indespensible. But no cause challenged the courage and integrity of Ida B. Wells-Barnett as much as her battle against mob violence and the terror of lynching at the end of the 19th century.
Louisa Adams was born in Rockingham, Richmond County, North Carolina. Adams was 8 years old when the Yankees came through North Carolina. The slave children were sent to work at the Salt Mines. While the parents were sent to work in the gardens and take care of their own hogs. Louisa Adams said she had a very hard time while in slavery. Their slave Master's name was Tom A. Covington, Sir. Many night they had to work in order to just stay alive. Louisa Adams stated that they were so hungry they would have to steal or parish just to survive. She stated that “Our food wuz bad” and “they had to use what they had made in the garden to eat”. They also ate their own hogs because they had no food and their Master did not feed them. However, Adams
Ida chose to return to Mississippi for the birth of her daughter “for the express purpose of having the baby in the familiar hands of a midwife”. While she was there, George relocated to Chicago seeking steady employment where he obtained a series of small jobs and was finally able to rent a one room basement apartment for his returning family. George gradually improved jobs and obtained steady employment with the Campbell Soup Company, which ended up being his lifetime occupation. Throughout this period of time, George sought improved housing and a better environment for his growing family. However, they were still obligated to live within the allotted areas for Black families which were extremely overpopulated. Ida Mae was not too proud to accept advice from migrants who were there before her and The Defender's periodic lists of “do's and don’ts” . She was above all not a complainer or a slacker, but would work alongside of her husband determined to help achieve the objectives they courageously set out to accomplish, more opportunities, freedom to practice all aspects of life granted in the 13th, 14th, and 15th Amendments, and protection from the Jim Crow laws for all of their
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.
Ida B. Wells was born into slavery, and lived in Holly Springs Mississippi. She was later freed, and learned from her parents what it meant to be a political activist. By 1891, Wells was the owner of the newspaper, Free Speech, and was reporting on the horrors that were occurring in the south. Wells, along with other people of the African American activist community were particularly horrified about the lynching’s that were occurring in the south. As a response to the lynching that was occurring, and other violent acts that the African American community was dealing with Wells wrote three pamphlets: Southern Horrors, The Red Record, and Mob Brutality. Muckraking and investigative journalism can be seen throughout these pamphlets, as well as Wells intent to persuade the African American community, and certain members of the white community to take a stand against the crime of lynching. Wells’ writings are an effective historical text, because she serves as a voice to an underrepresented African American community.
After moving to Rochester, NY in 1845, the Anthony family became very active in the anti-slavery movement.
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.
Ida B. Wells profession was being a journalist. Ida B. Wells had led a crusade against lynching in the 1890s. She was an abolist and feminist who strove for justice. She had been born on July 16th, 1862. She died the day of March 25, 1931.
Evelyn Rogers, formerly Evelyn Hendrickson, was born on July 17th, 1949 to an upper middle class family in Swansboro, North Carolina. She was the youngest, having one older sister named, Caroline whom was only about a year older her. Her mother came from a religious Christian family, she pursued the life of a housewife while her father was a general physician then a few years into his career, joined the Navy-causing the family to move on base to Camp Lejeune, North Carolina where he worked at the Naval Hospital. She admits to have lived a privileged childhood, her family lived a comfortable life in a suburban, upper middle class neighborhood. Of course racism was at a peak especially in the south. Her neighborhood consisted of only white people who were of the same social class as her family.
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...
Wells was a fearless anti-lynching crusader, women’s rights advocate, journalist, and speaker. After her parents passed away she became a teacher and received a job to teach at a nearby school. With this job she was able to support the needs of her siblings. In 1844 in Memphis, Tennessee, 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. Wells refused, but was forcefully removed from the train and all the white passengers applauded. Wells was angered by this and sued the company and won her case in the local courts; the local court appealed to the Supreme Court of Tennessee. The Supreme Court reversed the court’s ruling. In Chicago, she helped to develop numerous African American women and reform organizations. Wells still remained hard-working in her anti-lynching crusade by ...
Wells. In May 1892, whites envied three of her friends for opening a successful grocery store. Her friends were arrested, then taken from jail, and lynched. Lynching was a very public act that differs from ordinary murders or assaults because it is a killing that is against the boundaries of due process; the legal requirement that all states must respect all legal rights owed to a person. This horrific execution took place every other day in the 1890’s, but the mob killing of the innocent three men who owned the grocery store was extremely frightening. In protest 2000 black residence left Memphis that summer and headed West for Oklahoma, but Ida B Wells stayed and began her own research on lynching. Her editorials in the “Memphis Free Speech and Headlight” confronted the Lynch Law; which was said to be in place to protect white women, even though they leave white men free to seduce all the colored girls he can, yet black men were being lynched for having consensual relations with white women. Ida B. Wells states, “No one believes the old thread lies that Negro men assault white women, and if the southern white men are not careful they will overreach themselves and a conclusion will be reached which will be very damaging to the moral reputation of their women”. Whites were outraged with her words and Wells was fortunately away in the East when a mob came looking for her, they trashed the offices
A pivotal point in the journey of Mrs. Wells came in 1883 when she was physically removed from a first-class train car by a white train conductor who was attempting to enforce the Sou...