I recently finished reading about the amazing life of Ida B. Wells in her aptly titled autobiography “Crusade for Justice”.  She was born in Mississippi 3 years before the end of the Civil War.  After the deaths of her parents and against the wishes of her extended family, she initially took charge of her 5 siblings despite her young age of 14.  In short time, she sent 3 of siblings to the care of an aunt.  Miss Wells taught school to earn a living until she found her calling:  journalism.  At about age 14 or 15, she refused to change seats on a train, was forcibly removed from the train, and subsequently sued the railroad company.  So, even at this young age, she was already fighting the expectations of others, both family and society. 

In Chicago, she succeeded in convincing other local women to establish a women’s club.  At one of the club meetings, a gentleman urged the attendees to form an organization which would specifically fight racial prejudice.  Subsequently, many prominent women, teachers, housewives, and girls started attending the weekly club meetings.  While Miss Wells was out of town, they applied for a charter from the state and changed the name of the club from the Chicago Women’s Club to the Ida B. Wells Club.  For the men of Chicago, Miss Wells founded a facility where they could read, sleep, and look for jobs.  She sought out and worked with different people, organizations, and churches.  Though she was a fine example of a collaborator, she did not shy away from criticizing specific people, female and male, Black and White, who she thought were failing in their support of her work. 

Miss Wells was well-known in her day as a consummate and eloquent journalist.  She revealed the horror of lynching and the fact that it happened across the country.  Her husband and children obviously emotionally supported her work as an investigative journalist because she travelled all over the country to collect the facts.  One time, one of her children woke her up and said that her husband was expecting her to take the train to the site of the latest horror because if she did not, no one would know what happened.

I marvel at the courage, conviction, and self-advocacy that Miss Wells expressed in her writings, conversations, and public speeches, and very often at a young age.  Unfortunately, I found myself, as has happened so many times in my adult life, shaking my head that yet another woman’s extraordinary life had not been included in my K-12, high school, or college education.  I had not been taught that a woman, especially an African-American woman, could own a business in the late 1800s-early 1900s in the USA, in her case a newspaper.  I also did not learn in school that those who opposed lynching, Jim Crow laws, unfair trials, and ballot box intimidation sought the influence of other countries to convince USA citizens, the press, and politicians that the racist and horrible practices must end.  My lack of formal education about women’s public involvement and accomplishments reminds me of the 2018 statistic that 80% of the contributors to articles written in English on Wikipedia are men.  The Geena Davis Institute on Gender in Media claims “if she can see it, she can be it”.  So too for reading.  Ida B. Wells did not revise history but rather revealed it.