Women & Girls: Ida B. Wells-Barnett

Ida B. Wells-Barnett was a journalist and activist. She is most well-known for her crusade to end lynching. In the 1890s, she not only documented the atrocities faced by Blacks in the South, she publicly drew attention to the practice of lynching through her writings. Drawing the ire of white males, the office of her publishing business was destroyed. With her life in danger, she moved to Chicago where she continued to write and speak about lynching. She made Americans, and the rest of the world, aware that Blacks were being murdered for no other reason than their skin color.

Wells-Barnett was also an activist for the Suffrage Movement, starting the first Black women’s suffrage organization in Chicago. Since she was a leader in the Chicago area for women suffragettes, the organizers of the 1913 Women’s Suffrage Parade invited her to march. However, they placed all black women at the back, so as not to rile white Southerners. Refusing to be segregated, Wells-Barnett declined, instead standing to the side of the parade route until the Chicago women—white women—approached. She walked right into line with them, thus participating in the parade on her terms.