Ida B Wells

When America was first founded, like any new invention, had its own set of flaws that needed to be sorted out in order to produce the fully functioning final product that in existance today. In its early stages, America struggled with issues surrounding the equality of its citizens. Ida Bell Wells-Barnett, also known as Ida B. Wells, worked tirelessly throughout her entire life fighting for civil rights as well as suffrage for women. Ida B. Wells expressed her opinion countess times though powerful powerful articles that were read across the country, effectively spreading the ideas about social and political issues that she felt most strongly about. Each of Ida B. Wells’s movements contributed to the extreme impact she left on American History,
As an African American woman in southern America during this period, Ida B. Wells found herself right in the center of these terrors. In May, 1884, Ida. B wells found herself to be a victim of unjust inequality for black Americans as she was riding the Chesapeake and Ohio Railroad (Ida B. Wells-Barnett). Wells had purchased a first class ticket to Nashville, but when she boarded the train she was told to sit in a segregated African American car. Obviously outraged, Wells refused to change her seat and was forcibly removed from the train. Wells was not about to let this incident get by without having attention drawn to it, and she sued the railroad and won at first, but the case was turned down in Tennessee Supreme Court (Ida B. Wells Biography). Sixty years before the famous incident with Rosa Parks refusing to give up her seat on the bus, Ida B. Wells similarly stood up for what she believed in and did not allow social prejudices control her life. A few years after the event on the train, Wells continued to fight for civil rights by founding the Negro Fellowship League. The Negro Fellowship League helped employ African American men, provide them with food and shelter, and protect African Americans who were falsely accused of criminal activities (Ida B. Wells-Barnett & the Negro Fellowship League). This league, founded by Ida B. Wells helped strengthen the
Wells worked tirelessly in the fights for women's suffrage and civil rights, and although her public actions and reform movements were extremely influential, nothing drew attention towards her opinions like her powerful voice in the world of journalism. Under the pen name “Iola”, Wells wrote numerous articles aggressively attacking lynching and other unjust actions occurring at the time (Ida B. Wells-Barnett). In a pamphlet published and circulated in Chicago by Wells she often refers to lynching as, “savage demonstrations,” or, “unspeakable barbarism,” (Wells-Barnett). Wells spent many years writing for Memphis’s black newspaper, The Free Speech, and some articles she published sparked major uproar in the city (Women Who Fought for the Vote). In 1891 Wells was dismissed from her job as a teacher at a Memphis school after releasing a highly opinionated article on the unequal funding of black schools (Ida B. Wells: A Courageous Voice for Civil Rights). In the same year, after the release of several anti-lynching articles, Wells’s office was stormed and destroyed and the people responsible drove her out of the city (Ida B. Wells Biography). Even though Well’s work ended up getting her chased out of her home, she continued to write about civil rights and women's suffrage from a new location in the north (Ida B. Wells Biography). The journalism produced by wells was obviously influential enough to spark some extreme feelings in some of its readers. The articles Wells