Born into slavery, Ida B. Wells later became an educator, an investigative journalist and an early civil rights activist, shedding light on the plight of Black Americans across the South. After the brutal deaths of three friends who were victims of lynching, Wells began chronicling mob violence, publishing her findings in articles and pamphlets. The American public eventually became less tolerant of lynching, in part because of the awareness created by Wells and the N.A.A.C.P., which she helped to establish. But efforts to pass federal antilynching legislation did not succeed until 2022, in the wake of nationwide protests over police killings of Black Americans.
Ida B. Wells and the Long Crusade to Outlaw Lynching
Ida B. Wells, a journalist, civil rights activist and suffragist, dedicated her life to documenting injustices against Black Americans and calling for change.
Born into slavery, Ida B. Wells later became an educator, an investigative journalist and an early civil rights activist, shedding light on the plight of Black Americans across the South. After the brutal deaths of three friends who were victims of lynching, Wells began chronicling mob violence, publishing her findings in newspaper articles and pamphlets.
Wells organized the first campaign to make lynching a federal crime, but that effort did not bear fruit until the passage of the Emmett Till Antilynching Act, signed by President Joe Biden in 2022.
She was 29 years old when three friends who ran a local grocery store were lynched when a white shop owner – who wanted to put them out of business – provoked a confrontation. As the co-owner of a newspaper, The Memphis Free Speech, Michelle Duster, Wells’s great-granddaughter, said, she “used her platform to disrupt the status quo. And then she decided to investigate other lynchings to find out how many other innocent people were victims of lynching.”
Her investigations identified dozens of arbitrary reasons given to explain lynchings. “She found, time and time again, that people who were lynched were innocent people who were either pushing the boundaries of what the social structure was at that time or they were a convenient scapegoat for some crime somebody else committed,” Duster told Retro Report.
The American public eventually became less tolerant of lynching, in part because of the awareness created by Wells and the N.A.A.C.P., which she helped to establish.
“Her commentary was not only powerful, it was explosive, and she was unflinching when it came to telling the truth,” Karlos Hill, a historian at the University of Oklahoma, told us.
This story was narrated by Cara Anthony of KFF Health News.
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Lesson Plan 1: Ida B. Wells and the Long Crusade to Outlaw Lynching
Ida B. Wells and the Long Crusade to Outlaw Lynching
Ida B. Wells and the Long Crusade to Outlaw Lynching
The Red Record of Lynching