Blackwell Reference Online

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Best known as the pioneer of the international anti-lynching campaign, Ida B. Wells-Barnett was a civil rights activist who fought for women's suffrage and against racial discrimination and segregation. A skilled protest writer and speaker, Wells used graphic descriptions of rape and lynching to show that the underlying cause of this form of racial brutality was reinforcement of white hegemony. Wells was born on July 16, 1862, in Holly Springs, Mississippi to James and Elizabeth Wells. Although born into slavery, Wells and her siblings grew up in a home her father owned, and she attended Rust College. In 1878, Wells's parents and her youngest brother died from yellow fever. Wells kept her family together and supported them all by teaching at a rural school. She later moved to Memphis, Tennessee to teach, but, in 1891, was dismissed from her teaching position after she wrote about the inequality of segregated education. Ida B. Wells Barnett (1862–1931) was a journalist and Progressive reformer who fought for civil rights and women's suffrage. She is best known for her efforts to call attention to the atrocities of lynching. She also fought against racial segregation and helped to found the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP). (Getty Images) Wells began writing for church bulletins and weeklies in 1887, and this grew into an editorship at Free Speech ... log in or subscribe to read full text