Ida B. Wells-Barnett, née Ida Bell Wells, (born July 16, 1862, Holly Springs, Mississippi, U.S. died March 25, 1931, Chicago, Illinois), American journalist who led an anti-lynching crusade in the United States in the 1890s. She later was active in promoting justice for African Americans. Ida Wells was born into slavery. She was educated at Rust University, a freedmen’s school in her native Holly Springs, Mississippi, and at age 14 she began teaching in a country school. She continued to teach after moving to Memphis, Tennessee, in 1884 and attended Fisk University in Nashville during several summer sessions. In 1887 the
This offering is in rightful homage and deep appreciation, not only for Nana Ida B. Wells-Barnett, but also for the awesome and audacious women of Us, the Malaika and Matamba, the Simba and Senut who created and put forth in thought, dialog, discourse and practice what we now call Kawaida womanism.
Ida B. Wells set out to change the law and ended up inspiring a nation.Now her great-granddaughter Michelle Duster pays tribute in “Ida B. the Queen: The Extraordinary Life and Legacy of Ida B. Wells.”