Ida B. Wells: A Mini-Companion Reader

Authored by Christina J.

“The very frequent inquiry made after my lectures by interested friends is “What can I do to help the cause?” The answer always is: ‘Tell the world the facts.’ ”

— Ida B. Wells, "The Red Record"

This week, Ida B. Wells, investigative journalist and civil rights crusader, was awarded a Pulitzer Prize for “her outstanding and courageous reporting on the horrific and vicious violence against African Americans during the era of lynching.” The honor comes nearly 90 years following Wells-Barnett death in 1931. Her great-granddaughter, Michelle Duster stated, “Ida used journalism as a tool of justice…her life was threatened. But she truly believed that by collecting names, dates, and circumstances around the lynchings that she could transform attitudes and impact policy and laws.” We thank Ida B. Wells for her work, her life, and her dedication. We recognize her and celebrate her ALL DAY, EVERYDAY.

For folks to learn more about Ida B. Wells and her work. electric.marronage compiled a series of primary and secondary sources—a syllabus—regarding the life of Ida.

“It is an amazing honor for my great-grandmother Ida B Wells to be awarded a posthumous 2020 Pulitzer Prize Special Citation. She spent almost fifty years of her life fighting for justice. She did not have the right to vote until she was in her 50s.… — “It is an amazing honor for my great-grandmother Ida B Wells to be awarded a posthumous 2020 Pulitzer Prize Special Citation. She spent almost fifty years of her life fighting for justice. She did not have the right to vote until she was in her 50s. She had modest financial resources. So the only thing she had to fight against racist oppression and the violent practice of lynching, was the truth.
Ida used journalism as a tool to fight for justice. She faced great danger and endured harsh criticism. Her printing press was destroyed. Her life was threatened. But she truly believed that by collecting names, dates, and circumstances around the lynchings that she could transform attitudes and impact policy and laws.
The fact that she received this honor in 2020 is fitting. It is the centennial of the 19th Amendment and an election year. So all of her work is relevant in the context of where we are today in his historic moment.”
—Michelle Duster, great-granddaughter of Ida B. Wells-Barnett

Primary Sources

Ida B. Wells-Barnett Papers

Located at the University of Chicago (some of the papers are digitized)

Collection description: “Ida B. Wells, (1862-1931) teacher, journalist and anti-lynching activist. Paper contain correspondence, manuscript of Crusade for Justice: the Autobiography of Ida B. Wells, diaries, copies of articles and speeches by Wells, articles and accounts about Wells, newspapers clippings, and photographs. Also contains Alfreda M. Duster's (Wells' daughter) working copies of the autobiography which Duster edited. Correspondents include Frederick Douglass and Albion Tourgee. Includes photocopies of correspondence of Wells' husband Ferdinand Barnett and a scrapbook of newspapers articles written by him.”

Barnett Family, 1917 (photograph in the U-Chicago Archives)

Featured

Southern Horrors: Lynch Law in All Its Phases (1892)

“The Afro-American papers are the only ones which will print the truth, and they lack means to employ agents and detectives to get at the facts. The race must rally a mighty host to the support of their journals, and thus enable them to do much in the way of investigation.”

Read Southern Horrors here.

Red Record (1895)

“The object of this publication is to tell the facts, and friends of the cause can lend a helping hand by aiding in the distribution of these books. When I present our cause to a minister, editor, lecturer, or representative of any moral agency, the first demand is for facts and figures. Plainly, I can not then hand out a book with a twenty-five-cent tariff on the information contained. This would be only a new method in the book agents' art. In all such cases it is a pleasure to submit this book for investigation, with the certain assurance of gaining a friend to the cause.”

Read The Red Record here.

Crusade for Justice: The Autobiography of Ida B. Wells

“Ida B. Wells (1862-1931) was one of the foremost crusaders against black oppression. This engaging memoir tells of her private life as mother of a growing family as well as her public activities as teacher, lecturer, and journalist in her fight against attitudes and laws oppressing blacks.”

"No student of black history should overlook Crusade for Justice."—William M. Tuttle, Jr., Journal of American History

Secondary Sources

Featured

To Tell the Truth Freely: The Life of Ida B. Wells (2010) | Mia Bay

“Born to slaves in 1862, Ida B. Wells became a fearless antilynching crusader, women's rights advocate, and journalist. Wells's refusal to accept any compromise on racial inequality caused her to be labeled a "dangerous radical" in her day but made her a model for later civil rights activists as well as a powerful witness to the troubled racial politics of her era. Though she eventually helped found the NAACP in 1910, she would not remain a member for long, as she rejected not only Booker T. Washington's accommodationism but also the moderating influence of white reformers within the early NAACP. In the richly illustrated To Tell the Truth Freely, the historian Mia Bay vividly captures Wells's legacy and life, from her childhood in Mississippi to her early career in late-nineteenth-century Memphis and her later life in Progressive-era Chicago.”

Ida: A Sword Among Lions | Ida B. Wells and the Campaign Against Lynching | Paula J. Giddings (2008)

“In this eagerly awaited biography by Paula J. Giddings, author of the groundbreaking book When and Where I Enter, which traced the activist history of black women in America, the irrepressible personality of Ida B. Wells surges out of the pages. With meticulous research and vivid rendering of her subject, Giddings also provides compelling portraits of twentieth-century progressive luminaries, black and white, with whom Wells worked during some of the most tumultuous periods in American history. Embattled all of her activist life, Wells found herself fighting not only conservative adversaries but icons of the civil rights and women’s suffrage movements who sought to undermine her place in history.

In this definitive biography, which places Ida B. Wells firmly in the context of her times as well as ours, Giddings at long last gives this visionary reformer her due and, in the process, sheds light on an aspect of our history that is often left in the shadows.”

The Memphis Diary of Ida B. Wells (1995) | Miriam Decosta-Willis (editor)

“Published for the first time in its entirety, The Memphis Diary of Ida B. Wells tracks the young Ida through her transition from schoolteacher to a fearless crusader against lynching in the late 19th century. This unique document provides rare insight into the lives of 19th-century African-American women. Features a foreword by Mary Helen Washington.”

Electric Blog

Primary Sources

Secondary Sources