Although Ida Wells-Barnett was a well-known journalist in her time,she is more remembered for her anti-lynching campaigns. She activelyfought racism all her life, even biting the hand of a train conductorthat tried to get her to sit in the "blacks-only" section.
In Memphis, Tennessee, where Wells lived, mobs of white men werehanging ("lynching") black men after accusing them of raping white women.Wells wrote that these were lies, and that black men were being persecuted and unfairlymurdered. Her opinions angered many whites, and some threatened to killher. But she didn't back down, and under the pen name "Iola," she wrotestrong pieces against lynching and racism in many papers, such as theIndianapolis Freeman, the Detroit Plaindealer, and theNew York Sun. Her fellow journalists, all male, supported her andsaid she wrote as well as they did. She was editor of the Memphis FreeSpeech, and when she found out that white news dealers were sellingwhite newspapers to illiterate blacks when they asked for the FreeSpeech, she started to print it on pink paper so they wouldn't befooled. In 1892, an angry mob who didn't like her articles on lynching destroyed the offices of her Free Speech. Wells lobbied state governments and even led a delegation to theWhite House to speak out against lynching. Her unending campaign againstmob violence against black men caused six states to pass anti-lynching laws.
Besides attacking her enemies, Wells sometimes attacked other blacksfor talking too much and not doing enough to attain equal rights. Buther writing was incredibly influential. For example, she wrote an articletelling blacks that they should leave Memphis, since they were beingtreated so poorly. 2,000 blacks actually moved away, which severelydamaged the local economy.
Wells also did many other things besides write. She was the firstblack to become an adult probation officer in Chicago, and she started asuffrage club for black women that marched in parades for women's rightsand signed black women up to vote. She also campaigned for variouspoliticians, and even ran for the Illinois Senate once. Now Memphis, thecity that Wells criticized, remembers her in public signs and museums asone of the community's great citizens. Wells is one of the few black womenjournalists in history who are still known today, because heranti-lynching crusades were so successful.
Wells paid a lot of attention to who was being lynched and why.Nowadays, statistics claim that blacks who kill whites are punished muchmore harshly than whites who kill blacks. Look through your local paperand see if you notice black and white criminals being treateddifferently. Wells also noticed that only one white person had to make upan accusation to get a black man hanged. Is the accusation of one persontoday enough to put someone in jail? Is it different for blacks andwhites?