Ida B. Wells
At the age of 22, Ida B. Wells became a woman of color known to many across the country. She, along with many other people of color, were tired of the way they were being treated and demanded respect, or to at least be treated humanly.
Her rise to activism for equality for women and people of color began with an incident on a train car. She had been asked to go to the back car which was full of smoke. Feeling perfectly comfortable where she was, she refused to move. The train conductor attempted to pull her out of her seat and so she bit his hand. Even though she was then kicked off the train, she didn't let what happened end there. This incident led her to pursue her passion to fight for equal rights for people of color.
After the train car incident, she was devastated to learn that three of her friends had been lynched for becoming involved in a scuffle with other white men who had gotten injured. From the mass lynching in the south and now her friends losing their lives to lynching, she had to try and put an end to these injustices. She then turned to her writing to express her concerns and portray her message to people across the country.
Wells wrote about lynching, injustice, and much more in newspapers and in her books. She used her skills in writing to broadcast not only what she saw happening around her but what she wanted to see. Wells was a feminist, a suffragist, journalist, and an early leader of the Civil Rights Movement. She viewed and experienced first hand what people of color and women of color were going through in the 1890's and wanted to put an end to it. Her courage led to the anti- lynching crusade and many other movements. 
I chose Ida B. Wells because what she fought for back in the late 1800's is still prevalent to today's issues. Wells viewed all the wrong around her and decided that enough was enough. She not only stood up for women of color, but for all people of color. She took an awful experience and turned it into a movement for people of color to have their civil rights. She used her writing to help spread not only her thoughts but most of everyone's thoughts around the country to help raise awareness and eventually put an end to the lynching and degrading of people of color. As we see today, it is not as bad as it was back in Wells's day. But women and people of color are still not treated equally, which is why her points and voice are still relevant to this day.
Works Cited:
1. “Ida B. Wells: Tell the Whole Truth.” Big Red Hair, www.bigredhair.com/blog/ida-b-wells-tell-the-whole-truth/. Accessed 21 Sept. 2017.2. Barnett, Ida Wells (1862-1931) | The Black Past: Remembered and Reclaimed, www.blackpast.org/aah/barnett-ida-wells-1862-1931. Accessed 21 Sept. 2017.
3. “Home.” Ida B. Wells-Barnett Museum, idabwellsmuseum.org/. Accessed 21 Sept. 2017.
One more. I love that one of your sources is called Big Red Hair, that's amazing.
ReplyDeleteI like her quote, that you can right wrongs by exposing them. I like to believe that's true. Sometimes it seems like people are awfully good at looking at wrongs and then shrugging and smiling and saying, well, that's not my problem. But the world's changed, and it's changed because of people like her. So those people can't be the majority.
I have heard of Ida B. Wells, but never actually knew her story. I wonder if Rosa Parks had Ida in her mind when she refused to sit on the back of the bus, almost a century later. I can only imagine the evil atrocities that occurred before and during the civil war, and for Ida, a woman of color, to stand up for what's right, feels incredibly brave.
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ReplyDeleteI love your Blog post. I actually Have heard of Idea Wells but i didn't know all of that about her. She was an amazing "women warrior". She stood up for all the women and men of color which is an amazing trait in a person when they are able to do that. When you think back to how people of color were treated back in the day it is so sad to think about how different they were treated, and how people had stand up for them selves so much back then.
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