"They Say" Essay
Hannah Meyer
HIST 319
Dr. Kenneth Jolly
18 March 2015
The Civil Disobedience of Ida B. Wells James West Davidson does not seek to write a biography of Ida B. Wells in his book Ida B. Wells and the Reconstruction of Race, but instead chooses to write a scholarly narrative about how African Americans in the Victorian era reconstructed their identities and uses the first thirty years of Wells’ life as a vehicle for this goal. It is through Wells’ early life that Davidson can examine the key issue of self-definition and self-determination over the meaning of race during Reconstruction when former slaves were constantly put up against what “they say” or what whites as well as other African Americans said. He focuses on the spread of education among free African Americans, the rise of political activism, and the struggles for equality in the face of ingrained social customs. At the very center of the period of Reconstruction was the lynching of African Americans. Wells faced these struggles throughout her life as her pursuit for personal fulfillment was thwarted by others using race as a barrier of separation. However, Wells did not let her race, gender, or class deny her from being outspoken about such issues as lynchings and sought to define herself in the face of what they say about her. In Davidson’s book, Ida B. Wells used her agency to define herself in an era marked with what they say. Ida B. Wells was born in Holly Springs, Mississippi, two months before the Emancipation Proclamation. Her father, James Wells, was a carpenter and her mother, Elizabeth, was a cook with a large culinary reputation. The words of the Emancipation Proclamation did not define their freedom, but was defined differently by each individual African American. James and Elizabeth expressed their freedom by formalizing their marriage, which had been one of the many customs distorted by bondage.1 Previous to the war, African Americans had to walk in the gutter and move for any whites
HIST 319
Dr. Kenneth Jolly
18 March 2015
The Civil Disobedience of Ida B. Wells James West Davidson does not seek to write a biography of Ida B. Wells in his book Ida B. Wells and the Reconstruction of Race, but instead chooses to write a scholarly narrative about how African Americans in the Victorian era reconstructed their identities and uses the first thirty years of Wells’ life as a vehicle for this goal. It is through Wells’ early life that Davidson can examine the key issue of self-definition and self-determination over the meaning of race during Reconstruction when former slaves were constantly put up against what “they say” or what whites as well as other African Americans said. He focuses on the spread of education among free African Americans, the rise of political activism, and the struggles for equality in the face of ingrained social customs. At the very center of the period of Reconstruction was the lynching of African Americans. Wells faced these struggles throughout her life as her pursuit for personal fulfillment was thwarted by others using race as a barrier of separation. However, Wells did not let her race, gender, or class deny her from being outspoken about such issues as lynchings and sought to define herself in the face of what they say about her. In Davidson’s book, Ida B. Wells used her agency to define herself in an era marked with what they say. Ida B. Wells was born in Holly Springs, Mississippi, two months before the Emancipation Proclamation. Her father, James Wells, was a carpenter and her mother, Elizabeth, was a cook with a large culinary reputation. The words of the Emancipation Proclamation did not define their freedom, but was defined differently by each individual African American. James and Elizabeth expressed their freedom by formalizing their marriage, which had been one of the many customs distorted by bondage.1 Previous to the war, African Americans had to walk in the gutter and move for any whites