Ida Wells was born during the Civil War. At 16 she raised her brothers and sisters since her parents both died. She later became a teacher to support her family on her own.
Ida was a leader against anti-lynching. Lynching was a horrible thing that happened during and before the Civil War when a group of angry people would gather together to intentionally hurt and often kill a person, such as by public hanging, taking the law into their own hand. They often attacked black people and other minorities at the time even if they did nothing wrong. Ida was black herself, which made the cause even more personal.
Wells saw very bad things happening in Memphis, TN, which is where she lived and wrote a newspaper article about it. A mob destroyed the printing press that published the article. She later fled to New York where she led anti-lynching campaigns for people to see it as a true crime. This helped carve the path to abolish and eventually pass laws preventing it.
Ida Wells one day was forced out of a train because she was black. She later sued the railroad over it. Wells lost the case when it went to the Supreme Court, but she continued her fight for both woman's and African-American Civil Rights. At the time it was very unusual for women, and especially black women, to stand up for Civil Rights. She was one of the first to do it and help lead the way to freedom and rights that women and blacks share today.
She wrote about a variety of subjects as a journalist and became one of the most important women journalists at the time.
