Browse Items (26 total)

Soon after the US Centennial, teenage Ida B. Wells’ family was decimated by a yellow fever epidemic. Yellow fever is a mosquito-borne virus, fatal 10-15% of the time. Her father James and her mother Lizzie, who had survived slavery, died along with…

When Ida B Wells arrived in Brooklyn, it was still its own city. (The 5 boros consolidated in 1898.) How imposing the massive metropolis must have felt to Ida, forced to flee Memphis in 1892 after publishing “The Truth About Lynching.” Ida’s…

If we had to pick just one person to represent the genius and tenacity of American women, it would be #IdaBWells. I only wish it were permanent. A huge new Ida B. Wells mosaic in Union Station will honor the 19th Amendmenthttps://t.co/zt5GQTd9Jx…

Thomas Moss’s murder changed #IdaBWells’ life. Moss was a close friend & fellow business leader, and his death demonstrated that Black self-defense in Memphis was futile. Ida👇with Betty Moss and her children Maurine & Thomas Moss, Jr.,…

The belief that “women” would vote as a block about alcohol animated support and opposition re: suffrage. (It wasn’t ever really true.) The liquor industry lobbied against women’s votes at many junctures, though historians debate how much…

Memphis was rebuilding when Ida B. Wells arrived in the 1880s. After the yellow fever epidemic, the city levied a tax to build drainage systems & fight mosquitoes. The city fathers were white, but a growing Black population garnered some power:…

Ida B Wells didn’t love being a teacher, but as she built an adult life in Memphis, she began working as a reporter. Realizing that owning & editing her own paper was the only way to make a living as a journalist, Wells invested in The Memphis…

Join me! I just gave to make this film about #IdaBWells and the creation of a new monument to her in Chicago. I want every kid to know Ida's name. Give if you can, and spread the word.

Ida B at work. Another glimpse of the master persuader, via the beautiful 2d edition of her autobiography. Great foreword by @eveewing & afterword by @MichelleDuster about preserving the legacy. 🧵 In 1900 the Chicago Tribune runs stories…

Black women at the Inaugural March, part IIIIda B Wells is the hero of our story. At the 1913 suffrage march she was 50 years old, mother of 4, an established community leader in Chicago. But since white women are looking for anti-racist models,…