Why Ida B. Wells Is Significant to Black History

Nonso Nwagbo
5 days ago
3 min read

“I felt that one had better die fighting against injustice than to die like a dog or rat in a trap.” - Ida B. Wells

Ida B. Wells was one of the earliest and most influential African American activists, working decades before leaders like Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Born into slavery on July 16, 1862, in Holly Springs, Mississippi, but freed by the Emancipation Proclamation the following year she was the eldest of eight children. Orphaned at 16 by a yellow fever outbreak that claimed both parents, she supported her siblings by becoming a teacher.

At a time when the idea of women voting was dismissed outright, Wells emerged as a powerful voice in the fight for women’s rights and racial justice. This article explores her significant contributions to Black history and her lasting impact on the city of Chicago.

Why Ida B. Wells Is Significant to Black History

How should one describe this Black history icon? Civil rights activist, suffragist, teacher, author, feminist, journalist, or anti-lynching crusader? Ida B. Wells was all of these and more, at a time when Black Americans, including children, were lynched with impunity, often while in police custody.

On March 9, 1892, a white mob stormed a Memphis jail and lynched three Black men without trial. The victims, Thomas Moss, Calvin McDowell, and Will Stewart, were close friends of Wells. Their murders marked a turning point in her life and work.

Wells used her investigative journalism skills to expose the truth behind lynchings that were often ignored or deliberately misreported. She documented more than 700 lynchings across the United States, traveling extensively and often at great personal risk. After receiving numerous death threats and having her newspaper office destroyed, Wells was forced to leave the South.

She relocated to Chicago, continuing her activism on a national and international stage.

In 1909, Wells was among the founding members of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP). She also carried her anti-lynching campaign directly to the nation’s capital, helping organize protests in Washington, D.C.

As a former educator, she was deeply committed to improving educational opportunities for Black children and consistently opposed segregated schooling.

Ida B. Wells’s Impact on Chicago

Ida B. Wells moved to Chicago in 1894, where she became a central figure in the city’s Black political, social, and educational life. By the age of 32, she had already survived enslavement, racial terror, and exile from the South, yet continued to fight relentlessly for justice.

Her contributions to Chicago include:

Organizing Black political power and women’s voting rights, including co-founding the Alpha Suffrage Club, the first Black women’s suffrage organization in the United States.
Establishing educational opportunities for Black children, including helping create Chicago’s first kindergarten for Black students, which began in the lecture room of Bethel A.M.E. Church.
Speaking out against racial exclusion at the 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition in Chicago.
Running for public office in Illinois in 1930, becoming one of the first African American women in the nation to seek legislative office.

Her work laid the foundation for future generations of Black women leaders and activists in Chicago and beyond.

Conclusion

Without Ida B. Wells’s fearless investigative journalism and commitment to truth, many acts of racial violence against innocent Black Americans might have gone undocumented and unchallenged. Her legacy endures through her fight for civil rights, women’s rights, and educational equity, and through the institutions and movements she helped build.

For kid-friendly resources about Ida B. Wells, visit SankofaChicago.com.