Ida Wells Barnett

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Ida B Wells-Barnett is most known in the narrative of feminism as the anti-lynching crusader. Although lynching was the issue, concern, and topic that catapulted Wells into social justice and activism, Wells contributed much more to the feminist narrative than her anti-lynching activism and victories. In the words of one scholar, “She stands as one of our nation's most uncompromising leaders and most ardent defenders of democracy.” (Baker) Think of how the additional information provided in the biographical details and contributions to feminism regarding Wells-Barnett is an “essential” part in the narrative of the historical roots of feminism.

Biographical Details

Ida Wells-Barnett was born in Holly Springs, Mississippi in 1862, just before slavery was abolished. Wells and her parents were former slaves and her father was the son of his former master.(Dalfiume 307). Thus, her racial roots included “white, African American, and American Indian.” (Totten 56) These roots would become part of Well’s fight for justice in speaking to the truth of sexual relationships between whites and blacks, in regards to the stereotypes placed on black women and men to justify lynchings.

Wells parents supported seven children with both contributing income to the household. Wells, her siblings and her mother attended school to learn how to read following the abolition of slavery. Wells father participated in black political organizations, “attended public "speakings," “and campaigned for local black political candidates.” (McBride) Wells later interest in politics and political organizations was most likely rooted in her father’s interests and pursuits in her childhood.

During her time in school, Wells read extensively. As one scholar notes, Wells “read every book in the school library.” With a critical lens analyzing the content and context of what she read, Wells noted the absence of African Americans available to read as authors or subjects of American literature and media. (McBride)

At the age of sixteen, Wells-Barnett lost her parents and her youngest sibling to Yellow Fever. With a spirit of fierce determination that would guide her courageous efforts and accomplishments for racial and sexual justice, Wells furthered her education while keeping her siblings together and eventually provided support by earning a job as a teacher. (McBride)

Wells-Barnett eventually moved to Memphis to join the support of other family in raising her younger siblings. She would further her education and rise from a teacher in the country to becoming a teacher in the city. It was here that Wells-Barnett would have her first personal experience with discrimination and injustice that would catapult her into an activist. Her specific contributions will be covered in the next section. It is important to note that “between 1880 and 1909” Wells-Barnett would write “dozens of newspaper and periodical articles and pamphlets about the tragedy of lynching.” (McDermott 69) Having been exiled from returning to Memphis for fear of her life threatened by a lynch mob, Wells Barnett would flee to New York and end up in Chicago.

During her time as a civil right activist and feminist, Wells-Barnett would marry an attorney, Fernidad Lee Barnett a Chicago newspaper owner, and give birth to four children. (The JBHE Foundation, Inc) Beverly Guy-Sheftall, a notable Black Women’s Studies scholar, noted that Wells Barnett “determined not to give up her public life, carried her baby…(and nurse) along with her to women’s conventions and political campaigns.” (Guy-Sheftall, Black Women's Studies: The Interface of Women's Studies and Black Studies 39) Guy-Sheftall notes also that a crucial question in the study and telling of the narrative of African American feminism “Is why these black women were better able to juggle the roles of wife, mother, and career than their white female counterparts.” (Guy-Sheftall, Black Women's Studies: The Interface of Women's Studies and Black Studies 39) Personally, I feel that the enduring of the added responsibilities and difficulties of the oppression and discrimination experienced by African American women, left them better able to cope with multiple responsibilities of motherhood and activism. African American women’s activism included the fight for life for their children and African American men in ways that white women’s activism did not, especially in regards to the “unwritten law” that allowed lynching to become such an epidemic during this time.

Wells Barnett remained an involved activist throughout later life, continuing to support and participate in various organizations social and gender justice organizations. She passed in 1931. (Dalfiume 308)

Contributions to Feminism

Ida Wells-Barnett is largely depicted as the single woman who led the ant lynching crusade of the late 1800s into the early 1900s. Even though her contributions to the gathering of data and dissemination of the data during this time in American history is unmatched by anyone, Wells contributions to feminism extends beyond national to international scope in being “one of” the “most uncompromising leaders and most ardent defenders of democracy” and justice. (Baker)

            Wells crusade for justice against racism and sexism began when she moved to Memphis. Over 70 years before Rosa Parks, in 1884, would spark the Montgomery Bus Boycotts, Wells resisted and attacked white supremacy and sexism by refusing to give up her seat on a rail car to a white male passenger. Wells resisted the white conductors attempt to physically remove her by biting his hand, requiring three men to forcefully remove her from the train. Occurring before the establishment of “separate but equal” segregation in Plessy vs Ferguson and after the Civil Rights Act of 1875 that “banned discrimination,” Wells fought and won her case in civil court where she was awarded $500. (The JBHE Foundation, Inc) The Supreme Court of Tennessee would eventually reverse the civil court victory, but Wells would begin her career as a journalist writing about her experience of racial and gender injustice. During her early newspaper publishing years in 1887, Wells “was named the most prominent correspondent for the American black press” and filled the role of assistant secretary to the National Afro-American Press Convention.

Within five years of her first confrontation with racism and sexism, Wells would leave her teaching career to become a partner in the Free Speech and Headlight in 1889. (Baker) As African Americans gained economic independence from white store owners with the opening of an African American owned grocery store, tensions among white store owners and Wells, three friends owning the other grocery store exploded Wells friends were lynched for shooting one of the attackers when defending themselves against white attackers. Using the Free Speech as a platform, Wells advised other African Americans to leave town due to the fact that they were not able to defend themselves against attack without being lynched. (Baker) Wells wrote several editorials in her paper challenging the stereotypes of racist white supremacy with blatant, non-apologetic truth. She challenged the “thread-bare lie that Negro men assault white women” and courageously asserted that “"If  Southern  white  men  are  not  careful, they will  over-reach  themselves  and  a  conclusion  will  be  reached  which  will  be very  damaging to  the  moral reputation of  their  women." (Totten 52) In response to this editorial, white supremacists destroyed the newspaper headquarters and threatened “death to anyone who revived the paper.” (Totten 52)

Leaving Memphis due to death threats from those steaming from the truth she had dared to publish, Wells headed north. Wells felt that she would be able “to tell the whole truth” for herself and her race more “freely” in the north. (Totten 52) She would travel throughout the country educating about the economic factors that contributed to lynching, the racist prejudices and stereotypes that would be used to justify the grotesque and gruesome behavior, and dispel the lies about these injustices with facts. During this time, in 1893, Wells helped establish “the first African American female suffrage organization”, the Alpha Suffrage Club.(Guy-Sheftall, Words of Fire: An Anthology of African American Feminist Thought 69) Wells would end up marching in Washington D. C. in 1913 supporting the call for universal suffrage. (Baker)

By 1895, Wells Barnett had relocated to Chicago and published the first of two major works on lynching. “Southern Horror: Lynch Law in All Its Phases” was a pamphlet speaking truth about the horrors of lynching. The pamphlet directly implicated the federal government’s lack of response in accountability for these crimes as a direct cause of the expansion of this atrocity. In her traveling in America, she struggled to be heard by white audiences with her writings and lectures. She did enlist the “support of the Black press,” understanding that they were “the only ones which will print the truth” and that it was of utmost importance to educate African Americans about the facts regarding lynching, the statistics and causes. (Nichols 78) Finding a lack of listening ears and absence of action in the white audiences in America, Wells embarked on her first international trip to the United Kingdom a year after writing her first pamphlet on lynching. (Totten 47) As stated in her autobiography, she believed in the telling of truth and facts to “stimulate” a “demand” for “justice” and she took her demand for justice overseas. (McDermott 69)

In 1893, Wells embarked on another speaking tour through Europe. During this trip abroad, Wells-Barnett did not hesitate to speak the truth regarding white feminist’s exclusion of African American women from white feminist movement and their participation in the perpetration of degrading prejudice and stereotypes. Engaging the leader of the Women Christian Temperance Union, Frances Willard, in an extended discussion about the truth of Willard’s feelings and prejudice towards the African American race, Wells exposed the truth of Willard’s racist beliefs and statements that kept her from being a supporter of the anti-lynching crusade. As Well Barnett stated regarding Willard’s refusal to acknowledge the truth of her published racist comments against the black race, “my love for the truth is greater than any alleged friend.” (Davis 82)

On her return to America in 1895, she published A Red Record: Tabulated Statistics and Alleged Causes of Lynchings in the United States, 1892-1894. In this publishing of facts regarding lynching, Wells Barnett used the writings of white men in the Chicago Tribune for data sources. (Nichols 78) She did this as she stated, to remain "safe from the charge of exaggeration." (Nichols 79) Wells Barnett speaks to the truth regarding the entire justice system in America being “in the hands” of inherently prejudice white people, pointing out truths regarding the existential condition of discrimination and oppression endured by African Americans, resulting in atrocities against humanity through lynching. (Nichols 87)

When Wells Barnett returned from Great Britain, she underwent a change in “consciousness” regarding her double existence between the racism and oppression in America and the unbiased acceptance and respect she had experienced overseas. It was during this time that Wells “emphasized the right of  individual  African  Americans  to emigrate to  Africa  or  remain  in  America” thus supporting "the  transnationalism  of  the  Black Atlantic.” (Totten 49) This would be the beginnings of what would become the platform of Marcus and Amy Garvey in Pan-Africanism and Black Nationalism. Wells suggested solutions of “self-help” that would be a foreshadowing of the “racial uplift” that Amy Jacques Garvey spoke to her black readers and listeners throughout the diaspora.

In 1900, Wells wrote “Lynch Law in America,” “a powerful critiques of the institutionalized racism and sexism that render African American men and women vulnerable to previously unspeakable acts of violence.” (Guy-Sheftall, Words of Fire: An Anthology of African American Feminist Thought 69) In this publication, Wells spoke of the “unwritten law” that protected white lynch mobs in their crimes of lynching and the “negro domination” that the acts of lynching enforced. Wells understood that legislative action to address lynching would be difficult and long in coming, so her mission included education with truth to compel actions against the acceptance, tolerance, and perpetration of lynching.

Wells continued her support as an activist in organizations when, in 1906, she lent her support to the Niagara Movement, and, in 1909, helped establish the NAACP.” (Baker) Wells also joined forces with Jane Adams and helped stop “the establishment of segregated schools in Chicago.” (Baker)

As this biographical account and narrative of contributions to feminism illustrates, Wells was a lover of truth and justice. She spent a lifetime crusading for the freedom and equality of her race and of women. Wells addressed the most daunting issues facing African American men and women of her time, often times as a lone crusader. While white feminism focused on suffrage and other issues relevant to their experience, Wells understood and acted upon the very different realities of injustice and inequality endured based on race and sex. She was fearless and determined in spreading the truth of the plight of African Americans regarding lynching and courageous in her fight for equality and justice in education, suffrage, and the right to life.

Discussion Question(s)

1.      Why is Ida Wells Barnett narrative and contributions to feminism indispensable from the “essential” narrative of the historical roots of feminism?

2.      How did her narrative differ from many mainstream white feminist narratives?

3.      What foundations did Ida Wells Barnett participate in laying for the feminist movement, as well as, the civil rights movement?

References

Baker, Lee D. Ida B Wells-Barnett and Her Passion for Justice. 1996. <http://people.duke.edu/~ldbaker/classes/AAIH/caaih/ibwells/ibwbkgrd.html>.

Cott, Nancy F. "Feminist Politics in the 1920s: The National Woman's." The Journal of American History (1984): 7.

Dalfiume, Richard M. "Crusade for Justice: The Autobiography of Ida B. Wellsby Alfreda M. Duster." The Journal of Southern History 37.2 (1971): 307-308. November 2014 . <http://www.jstor.org/stable/2205846>.

Davis, Simone W. "The "Weak Race" and the Winchester: Political Voices in the Pamphlets of Ida B. WellsBarnett." Legacy 12.2 (1995): 77-97. Novmeber 2014. <http://www.jstor.org/stable/25679164>.

Guy-Sheftall, Beverly. "Black Women's Studies: The Interface of Women's Studies and Black Studies." Phylon (1960- 49.1 (1992): 33-41. November. <http://www.jstor.org/stable/3132615>.

—. Words of Fire: An Anthology of African American Feminist Thought. New York: The New Press, 1995.

McBride, Jennifer. Ida B. Wells: Crusade for Justice. n.d. November 2014. <http://www2.webster.edu/~woolflm/idabwells.html>.

McDermott, Stacy Pratt. ""An Outrageous Proceeding": A Northern Lynching and the Enforcement of Anti-Lynching." The Journa of Negro History 84.1 (1999): 61-78. November 2014. < http://www.jstor.org/stable/2649083>.

National Womens History Museum. Ida B Wells. n.d. November 2014. <https://www.nwhm.org/online-exhibits/progressiveera/wells.html>.

Nichols, Caroline C. "The "Adventuress" Becomes a "Lady": Ida B. Wells' British Tours." Modern Language Studies 38.2 (2009): 46-63. November 2014. <http://www.jstor.org/stable/40346990>.

The JBHE Foundation, Inc. "Dedication: Ida Bell Wells-Barnett." The Journal of Blacks in Higher Education 14 (1996): 1. November 2014. <http://www.jstor.org/stable/2962795>.

Totten, Gary. "Embodying Segregation: Ida B. Wells and the Cultural Work of Travel." African American Review 42.1 (2008): 47-60. November 2014. <http://www.jstor.org/stable/40301303>.