Nevertheless...Ida B. Wells

There must always be a remedy for wrong and injustice if we only know how to find it." Ida B. Wells

Okay, so, since this whole series started because of the Trump Administration deciding that the Smithsonian was “too woke,” and that it needed to focus on “brightness,” instead of…you know…telling the whole truth, our first person we’re going to meet is Dr. Ida B. Wells (she did not receive the honors doctorate until well after her death, from her former school, Rust College, but anyone who had heard of anything she’s done would be hard pressed to take that title away from her and so for this article I will be referring to her with that title)—I can almost hear the White House screaming in frustration at the thought of not only a person of color but a woman at that. Which is fitting, since sadly, that was an issue Dr. Wells faced her entire life. 

Born in Mississippi, into slavery, although she was ‘freed’ when she was still a toddler, as many Blacks experienced after the Civil War, freedom wasn’t always honored, especially in the South. Dr. Wells, after becoming a teacher at the age of 16, moved herself and her siblings, to whom she had become the surrogate parent after the death of her mother and father, to Memphis, Tennessee. Her journey into civil rights work unofficially began six years later when she was dragged from a train for not sitting where the conductor deemed she should based on her skin color. Dr. Wells, having purchased a ticket for the ladies' car, refused and later remembered white people looking on as if entertained as she was forcibly removed from the train. 

Shortly after this, she entered the field of journalism, writing editorials under a pen name that brought to the forefront problems that were faced every day by Black people. During this time, she was still teaching, however after she exposed the Memphis school system’s poor conditions, she was fired and became a full time writer. Then, in 1892, the owners of a grocery store in Memphis were lynched for providing competition for a local white owned grocery store. One of the men was a good friend of Dr. Wells, Thomas Moss.  Now, as she was always trying to do, she went looking for the truth, and when she uncovered it, published her findings in the newspaper, Free Speech. She also shed light on the racial prejudices in the city. A mob set fire to the office in response, and Dr. Wells was forced to leave the city. 

Wells became an outspoken investigator and reporter on lynchings and even published her findings in a pamphlet, Southern Horrors: Lynching Law in All Its Phases. Then, in 1893, she was hired to go undercover and report on her findings for The Chicago Inter-Ocean. 

After publishing her findings, she traveled to Europe, delivering lectures, and then went to Chicago, Illinois, which was at that time playing host to the World’s Columbian Exposition. Chicago, while it was considered a less racist and more progressive city by most standards, was not allowing the Black community to be involved. Dr. Wells raised the money to publish a pamphlet that was eventually published in three languages, titled The Reason Why the Colored American is Not in the World’s Columbian Exposition. It was a record of the discrimination and oppression that Blacks still faced after Emancipation. Frederick Douglass, a contributor to the pamphlet and who was representing the Haitian government’s booth at the fair, invited Dr. Wells to distribute the publication out there. Shortly after this, she returned to the lecture circuit on the other side of the Atlantic. 

Back in the US, Dr. Wells remained a leader in the anti-lynching and equal rights movements. She was at the founding of the NAACP, though she was largely suspicious of and pushed aside by the white leaders and even some of the Black leaders for being a woman. She founded the Negro Fellowship League in Chicago in 1910, providing help to Black people who were arriving in Chicago after having fled worse conditions in the Southern states. She marched for women's suffrage and became the first Black female probation officer in the city.

Throughout her life, Dr. Wells faced condescension from men for being an outspoken woman. But it wasn’t just men who tried to belittle her. According to an article published in the Chicago Defender in 1913 after the Women’s Suffrage Parade in D.C., southern women attempted to send Wells to the “Jim Crow” section of the parade, but she would not go. She had friends around her to support her protest, and the march carried on with her in place. 

She continued her activism and writing throughout her life. She ran as an independent candidate for the Illinois Senate seat in 1930 at the age of 67. She passed away from kidney disease in March 1931 at the age of 68. 

Dr. Wells' accomplishments were not recognized by her contemporaries, at least not publicly. Posthumously, she has been awarded doctorate degrees and the Pulitzer Prize. She has been featured on stamps and has schools, foundations, and streets named after her. 

History has remembered this strong, powerful, brilliant woman, even though her own time tried to diminish her. We would be remiss if we let anything happen to her legacy now. She deserves to be remembered and celebrated for all her work. The cause of it deserves to be remembered, too. We can’t erase the dark parts of the past. We can’t make them brighter. We can only let them lead us to a brighter future, which I feel is what Dr. Ida B. Wells would have wanted. 

Sources:

“BrainyQuote.” BrainyQuote, 2025, www.brainyquote.com/quotes/ida_b_wells_295240.

Duster, Michelle. “New Coin Celebrates the Living Legacy of Ida B. Wells.” Smithsonian American

Women’s History Museum, 30 Dec. 2024, womenshistory.si.edu/blog/new-coin-celebrates-living-

legacy-ida-b-wells.

Norwood, Arlisha. “Ida B. Wells-Barnett.” National Women’s History Museum, 2017,

www.womenshistory.org/education-resources/biographies/ida-b-wells-barnett .

“Our Namesake – Ida B. Wells Society.” Ida B. Wells Society, idabwellssociety.org/about/our-namesake/.

The Editors of Encyclopedia Britannica. “Ida Bell Wells-Barnett | Biography & Facts | Britannica.”

Encyclopædia Britannica, 2019, www.britannica.com/biography/Ida-B-Wells-Barnett.