Light On The Life And Accomplishments Of Ida B. Wells

In the words of Miss Ida B. Wells: The student of American sociology will find the year of 1894 marked by a pronounced awakening of the public conscience to a system of anarchy and outlawry which had grown during a series of ten years to be so common, that scenes of unusual brutality failed to have any visible effect upon the humane sentiments of the people of our land. She is depicting a period of time in American history stained with the blood of hundreds of free African American men, women and children. These people were unjustly slaughtered through the practice of lynching within the South. Wells was an investigative journalist and was involved in exploring, reporting, publishing literature on, and eventually campaigning against the

African American women have long been stereotyped, discriminated against and generalized in this country. They have had to face both being black in America while also being a woman in America. African American women encountered and still do encounter double discrimination of both sex and race (Cuthbert, 117). Women like Elise Johnson McDougald, Marion Vera Cuthbert and Alice Dunbar-Nelson all tried to shed light on what it was like to be an African American woman living in the 20th century yet literature often portrayed them as emotional, hypersexual, unintelligent and of lesser worth. The literature highlighted that African American women have to serve both their employer and their husbands and families. They are not supposed to have an opinion or stand up for themselves, especially to a white man. ***Concluding sentence?

Ida B. Wells, an African-American woman, and feminist, shaped the image of empowerment and citizenship during post-reconstruction times. The essays, books, and newspaper articles she wrote, instigated the dialogue of race struggles between whites and blacks, while her personal narratives, including two diaries, a travel journal, and an autobiography, recorded the personal struggle of a woman to define womanhood during post-emancipation America. The novel, _THEY SAY: IDA B. WELLS AND THE RECONSTRUCTION OF RACE_ , provides an insight into how Ida B. Wells's life paralleled that of

Lucy Stanton was born a free women and raised by John Brown, an abolitionist. She was the first African-American woman to graduate from a four-year collegiate course. A black woman going to school is extraordinary, because she challenged the ‘women are only housewives’ stereotype and rose like a phoenix from the ashes as an influence to future abolitionists and authors in the United States. Being a black woman in the 1850s, the odds were stacked against her. The majority of black students were denied admission to educational facilities, although white women were considered as non-intellectuals, black women were seen as less than that.

Ida B. Wells (1862-1931) was a newspaper editor and journalist who went on to lead the American anti-lynching crusade. Working closely with both African-American community leaders and American suffragists, Wells worked to raise gender issues within the "Race Question" and race issues within the "Woman Question." Wells was born the daughter of slaves in Holly Springs, Mississippi, on July 16, 1862. During Reconstruction, she was educated at a Missouri Freedman's School, Rust University, and began teaching school at the age of fourteen. In 1884, she moved to Memphis, Tennessee, where she continued to teach while attending Fisk University during summer sessions. In Tennessee, especially, she was appalled at

freedom. She filed a lawsuit against the railway company for refusing to provide her with

The Success of Ida B. Wells “One had better die fighting against injustice than die like a dog or a rat in a trap.” - Ida B. Wells Ida B. Wells was an important figure in Black American History. She was born a slave in Mississippi in 1862. Wells was able to gain an education and, later, became a journalist for various Negro papers. Through her writing, she was able to attack issues dealing with discrimination against African-American people.

Glenda Gilmore, in her essay “Forging Interracial Links in the Jim Crow South,” attempts to tackle the charged concepts of feminism and race relations during the infamous Jim Crow era. Her analysis focuses on both the life and character of a black woman named Charlotte Hawkins Brown, a highly influential member of the community of Greensboro, North Carolina. Brown defied the odds given her gender and race and rose to a prominent place in society through carefully calculated interracial relations. Gilmore argues that in rising above what was expected of her as a black woman, Brown was forced to diminish her own struggles as a black woman, and act to placate

Ida B. Wells was a woman dedicated to a cause, a cause to prevent hundreds of thousands of people from being murdered by lynching. Lynching is defined as to take the law into its own hands and kill someone in punishment for a crime or a presumed crime. Ida B. Wells’ back round made her a logical spokesperson against lynching. She drew on many experiences throughout her life to aid in her crusade. Her position as a black woman, however, affected her credibility both in and out of America in a few different ways.

After her husband’s passing in 1829, a turning point in Stewart’s life includes the time when she met David Walker, the author of the book, “An Appeal to the Colored People of the World”, and after his passing, she carried on his idealisms about slavery through her own work (PBS). “She went through a religious conversion in which she became convinced that God was calling her to become a ‘warrior’ ‘for God and for freedom’ and ‘for the cause of oppressed Africa’” (African American Registry). Her early life shaped who she grew up to be: an influential, strong black woman who was not afraid of society’s staggering labels and

Anna Julia Haywood Cooper (1859-1964) was one of the most influential African-American educators of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. As an activist, author, and scholar, she dedicated her entire life to the education and empowerment of African-American youth and adults. Her commitment and passionate belief in the power of education as a vehicle to social, economic, and political freedom was a driving force in her life. As an author and feminist, Cooper wrote A Voice from the South in 1892. This book consists of a collection of essays that reflects a Black feminist analysis

“From 1882-1968, 4,743 lynchings happened in the United States. Of these individuals that were lynched, 3,446 were dark colored. The blacks lynched represented 72.7% of the general population lynched”(“Ida B. Wells Quotes”). Ida Bell Wells Barnett, commonly known as Ida B. Wells was a women who wanted the best for her colleagues. Like most people, she was faced with a big complication. Wells Barnett was a critical part of America's history. Her story is one that must be known and brought to life by African Americans of all ages, today and in the future. In the 1890s Wells led an “anti-lynching crusade in the United States and went deeper in life to become someone who looked and strived for African American justice. Wells was a former slave who became a journalist and wrote about the unpleasant, severe race issues going on in the world which later resulted in death. Ida Bell Wells Barnett, an early leader in the civil rights movement, significantly impacted the lives of African Americans today by

The 1920’s were a time of change for African Americans. They were beginning to retain a sense of pride in their background and culture, were becoming more independent socially and economically, and were becoming more militant. Part of this was because of the Great Migration, in which a proliferation of African Americans moved from the Southern states to the Northern states, and the excessive levels of racism and prejudice they faced during the process. African Americans were really starting to make their voices and identities prevalent, especially through movements like the Harlem Renaissance and Marcus Garvey’s Universal Negro Improvement Association (UNIA). This mentality of independence and militance that African Americans adopted which is represented through the actions of Ossian Sweet is what makes up the 1920s cultural construct of the “New Negro” which allowed me to understand the realness and effectiveness of cultural constructs.

Chapter 4 of A Shining thread of hope explores the the 19th century as it relates to African-American women. It is broken down into subsections: Origins of the movement, Sojourner's sisters, outside the movement, the underground railroad, another world, another culture,and before the dawn. Each time period followed a certain formula. First, a generalization about the time, followed by a

Ida B. Wells-Barnett dedicated her life to social justice and equality. She devoted her tremendous energies to building the foundations of African-American progress in business, politics, and law. Wells-Barnett was a key participant in the formation of the National Association of Colored Women as well as the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP). She spoke eloquently in support of Marcus Garvey and the Universal Negro Improvement Association. The legacies of these organizations have been tremendous and her contribution to each was timely and indespensible. But no cause challenged the courage and integrity of Ida B. Wells-Barnett as much as her battle against mob violence and the terror of lynching at the end of