Ida B. Wells | Investigative Journalist, Educator, and Civil Rights Activist

Ida B. Wells (1862–1931) is one of the most remarkable women I have ever read about. That’s impressive, considering I’ve written over 100 blogs about brave women. She was a prolific investigative journalist, educator, and civil rights activist. Wells is best known for her fearless anti‑lynching crusade in the late 19th century, which exposed lynching as a tool of racial terror rather than criminal punishment. In 2020, she received a posthumous Pulitzer Prize Special Citation for her “outstanding and courageous reporting” on lynching in America.

Wells was born into slavery in Holly Springs, Mississippi. When she was just 16, both her parents and a younger sibling died in a yellow fever epidemic. Wells became the primary caregiver for her 6 remaining siblings while working as a schoolteacher.

Being kicked out of a first-class railcar despite having a valid ticket pushed Wells to act. She sued and won, but the Tennessee Supreme Court later overturned the ruling. The legal loss led Wells to take up the pen and become a part-owner of the Black-owned newspaper, The Memphis Free Speech. She reported on racial inequality, segregation, and violence.

When a white mob lynched three of her close friends in 1892, Ida B. Wells addressed it by collecting data, eyewitness accounts, and press reports to document lynchings across the South. She denied and exposed the widespread myth that lynching was a response to criminal behavior. Wells showed that lynching upheld white supremacy and hindered Black economic and political advancement. The result was a violent retaliation. A mob attacked her newspaper office and threatened her life, causing her to leave Memphis for good.

Linking racial justice and women’s rights, Ida B. Wells insisted that both civil rights and suffrage movements include Black women. Her obituary noted that her death marked the close of a “full career” of activism. She died of kidney failure.