Throughout Ida B. Wells’ diary, she has many struggles, ups and downs. Her diary takes us from her young promiscuous days as a young woman with her various friends, callers, and not knowing who she really was to basically a travel log as a married lady who was well set, owned her own news paper, and a spokesman for blacks all across America. During these years, she goes through long stretches of depression and happiness. In her struggles of depression, Wells very much struggles with three particular concepts the most. Wells has big problems her identity, the way black women were treated, and stereotypes of blacks. In Wells’ younger days, she struggled tremendously with the concept of identity. She did not know who she was, where shit fit in, or what crowd she was in part. In her diary, she talks of how she despises racism and blacks who forget their culture, yet when it comes to her looks she dresses to the “white” standard of a proper lady. Wells does not even notice this as it is not just her, but a mindset that has already been developing around her which she has taken on, that the “white” standard of dress is what is proper. One thing Wells does notice though is that she does not fit in anywhere. In the text she talks of how she feels she does not fit her time’s standards as a black woman. This is because in her time not just black women but mostly all women were supposed to be in the private eye and men were in the public eye. Wells’ found herself in the public eye which was extremely unusual, her being black and a woman. This is why she did not fit in. Wells’ struggle with identity is very important because it shows how the younger years of your life are a growing period for a person to find one’s self and true purpose. Wells was conflicted all the way into her twenties until she decides to take action on what she has wanted to do which is to be a writer and use that to be the trumpet and voice of blacks and speak out against the unfair treatment of blacks in America. Wells had to struggle through her identity to find her true purpose. This happens to mostly everyone nowadays also, for example in college many students do not know what they want to do until almost their third or fourth year in.
Despite the tough environment around the Ida B. Wells, people who live there are still faithful in God. However, some of them also question God for ignoring the black community. Based on this ambiguity, I think the gospel jazz “Is God a three letter word for Love” by Duke Ellington precisely portrays the complex emotion of the residents.
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.
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.
This piece of autobiographical works is one of the greatest pieces of literature and will continue to inspire young and old black Americans to this day be cause of her hard and racially tense background is what produced an eloquent piece of work that feels at times more fiction than non fiction
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.
Ida B. Wells felt that the white should be considered as rapist more than blacks. One excuse that whites use to justify lynch campaigns were that blacks raped their women or wives, which in some cases were not true. For instance, on page 54, it explains that on January 16, 1982 a white woman of highest respectability accused an African American man of raping her. So, with Mrs. Underwood testimony, they placed the man in the penitentiary, not knowing that in a few years she would confess that he was innocent.
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.
As America gained its Independence in 1776, two groups, blacks and women, were disenfranchised from the newly found freedom of the nation. However, there were no shortage of individuals and groups that worked towards equal rights and justice for all. For African-Americans, and women in some respect, one of the trailblazers who fought racism, inequality, and injustice was Ida B. Wells. Born into slavery six months before President Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation, Wells was a fierce civil rights leader, activist, suffragist, and journalist; but was best known as a fearless anti-lynching crusader.
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 ...
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
The Mother of the Civil Rights Movement Have you ever stood up for someone or something, even if it risked your own life? An upstander is someone who sees something harmful happening and tries their best to help out without second guessing themselves. Rosa parks is an inspirational role model to women and men all around the world. Rosa Parks has been a leader since she was a kid at school.
...nspired to make a change that she knew that nothing could stop her, not even her family. In a way, she seemed to want to prove that she could rise above the rest. She refused to let fear eat at her and inflict in her the weakness that poisoned her family. As a child she was a witness to too much violence and pain and much too often she could feel the hopelessness that many African Americans felt. She was set in her beliefs to make choices freely and help others like herself do so as well.
I am writing my reaction paper on Ida B. Wells who was an early leader in the Civil Rights movement. Ida was born July 16, 1862 in Holly Springs Mississippi where she was born a slave. Ida was active in women's rights and women's suffrage movement as well. She was a leader who was not scared to speak about what she believed in and spoke about the rights of all African Americans. At the age of fourteen a tragedy happened in her family, which was yellow fever that was spread throughout Holly Springs killing her parents and younger siblings. From there is when Ida had to grow up and take responsibility to keep the rest of her family together and also fight for civil rights for African Americans at this early age. When Wells moved to Memphis to live with her aunt so she can help take care of her and her siblings is when Ida really had to start fighting for justice with her race and gender. One of the biggest fights she had to go through was with the conductor of the Chesapeake and Ohio railroad company where she was asked to give up her seat to a white man and was demanded to go be seate...
The African American Civil Rights Movement was a series of protests in the United States South from approximately 1955 through 1968. The overall goal of the Civil Rights Movement was to achieve racial equality before the law. Protest tactics were, overall, acts of civil disobedience. Rarely were they ever intended to be violent. From sit-ins to boycotts to marches, the activists involved in the Civil Rights Movement were vigilant and dedicated to the cause without being aggressive. While African-American men seemed to be the leaders in this epic movement, African-American women played a huge role behind the scenes and in the protests.