Ida B. Wells

As you drive out of Memphis towards Birmingham, you pass an exit sign for the Ida B. Wells Museum in Holly Springs, Mississippi. Perhaps you’ve heard of Ida before or maybe, like me, you’ve driven past that sign a hundred times before you stop to look her up. Her name lingers there on the highway as a reminder of a woman who grew up in our very own midsouth but in a dramatically different time. Her story paints the picture of a heroine who rose above slavery to become an international voice for people of color and the women’s suffragete movement of the twentieth century.

A Woman to be Reckoned With

Ida B. Wells was born into slavery in 1862 in Holly Springs. The Emancipation Proclamation set her family free later that same year and both of her parents began successful careers within the community. They both became involved in Reconstruction Era politics and instilled the value of education into their children. Ida was the eldest of six, so when the Yellow Fever epidemic of 1878 struck the midsouth and both her parents died within 24 hours, her responsibility as the head of the household became overwhelming. Sixteen year old Ida had to make a plan quickly. She became a certified teacher. Refusing to allow her siblings to be split up, she moved the family to Memphis where she could earn a living and keep the household intact. 

In 1884, Ida filed a lawsuit against a local train company who threw her out of a first class seat even though she had a ticket. Ida’s journey into social politics had begun. The national climate of social inequality as well as the personal tragedies in Ida’s own life seemed to entangle themselves to create in her a spirit of justice. Under a pseudonym, she began writing letters to a local paper about the disparities in the education of African American children. Her teaching contract was not renewed the following year. Seeing that her writing had caught some attention, Ida bought a portion of a local paper called Memphis Free Speech. She could write safely there.

Click Here to view the 1,000-square-foot mosaic portrait of Ida B. Wells that went on display in the main hall of Washington D.C.’s Union Station in August 2020.

The Heart Behind a Movement

Tragedy continued to strike. In 1892, after three of her close friends were lynched in the city, Ida began an investigative report into the culture of lynching. The articles created a stir and her newspaper’s offices were ransacked. Fearful for her life and cause, Ida fled to Chicago. She married an activist there and became the mother of six. The remainder of Ida’s life necessitated a balance between activism and family. She traveled to Europe to speak against the horrors of lynching and organized a suffragete movement in Chicago. She explored and wrote about the lesser discussed lynching of African American women and challenged white and black communities to change their perspectives of equality. 

By the time Ida died in 1931, she had left a legacy of work in social justice, and had paved the way for brave women to follow in her footsteps, continuing the fight to bring liberty and justice for all. Her story is one that reaches far beyond a sign on Highway 78 and into the reshaping of a century. Ida is one of our own, a voice from the Bluff City who rose above unimaginable hardship and faced real danger to champion the rights of the oppressed. May her spirit and grit live on here in Memphis.