Ida Bell Wells was born enslaved on July 16, 1862, in Holly Springs, Mississippi. She came of age during Reconstruction and was educated at Rust College. After she was orphaned in 1878 at the age of 16, she became a caregiver to her five younger siblings and taught at a rural school. A few years later, she moved to Memphis, taught in the Shelby County schools, and began writing as a journalist for church newsletters and then for newspapers. In 1884, at age 22, she fought segregation after she was forcibly removed from the ladies coach of a train; she sued and won, but the ruling was reversed years later. In 1889, she became part owner of the Memphis Free Speech newspaper. Two years later she criticized inequality in segregated schools and lost her teaching job. She turned to journalism full-time and was selling subscriptions to the paper when three friends who owned the People's Grocery store were lynched after competing with a White-owned store. In response to the murders, Wells encouraged boycotts and an exodus. She investigated other lynchings and exposed how mob rule was used as terror and oppression against Black people rather than as a way to protect White womanhood. Her writing was so powerful that her printing press was destroyed and she was exiled from the South. She traveled throughout the country and England speaking and writing about the violence inflicted on the Black community. In 1895 she settled in Chicago, married Ferdinand L. Barnett, and had four children. As Wells-Barnett, she continued writing and advocating for justice. She founded the first Black suffrage organization in Illinois, integrated the 1913 suffrage march in Washington, D.C., co-founded several organizations including the NAACP, started the first kindergarten in Chicago for Black children, and created a rooming house for Southern migrants. Ten years after the passage of the 19th Amendment, she ran for state senate in 1930. A teacher, journalist, newspaper editor, anti-lynching crusader, and suffragist, Ida B. Wells-Barnett died on March 25, 1931, after fighting for equality and justice for almost fifty years.
