Born: 1862 Died: 1931 Ida B. Wells (married name Ida B. Wells-Barnett) was born in Holly Springs, MS and raised by parents recently released from slavery. One of seven children, Ida survived the poverty of deep south reconstruction due to skilled parents. Her mother, a well known cook and her father, a skilled carpenter raised Ida to the age of fourteen before they were both cut down by one of many occurrences of yellow fever. Ida kept her family together by becoming a teacher. She graduated from the nearby Rust College, then moved to Memphis to live with her aunt. Together they completed the raising of Ida's younger siblings.

Anticipating Rosa Parks by nearly 90 years Ida refused to take a seat in the "Jim Crow" car of a Chesapeake & Ohio Railroad car when told to do so. When instructed to surrender her seat to a white male passenger Ida responded, "I refused, saying that the forward car [closest to the locomotive] was a smoker, and as I was in the ladies' car, I proposed to stay. . . [The conductor] tried to drag me out of the seat, but the moment he caught hold of my arm I fastened my teeth in the back of his hand. I had braced my feet against the seat in front and was holding to the back, and as he had already been badly bitten he didn't try it again by himself. He went forward and got the baggageman and another man to help him and of course they succeeded in dragging me out."

This singular breed of fortitude and dogged determination to not be defined by the world around her led Ida into a world of radical social change. In 1889 Wells became a partner in the Free Speech and Headlight, gaining a large enough readership to leave her teaching position. After enduring the lynching of three close friends whose only crime was to try to enter the Memphis grocery business Ida wrote, "The city of Memphis has demonstrated that neither character nor standing avails the Negro if he dares to protect himself against the white man or become his rival. There is nothing we can do about the lynching now, as we are out-numbered and without arms. The white mob could help itself to ammunition without pay, but the order is rigidly enforced against the selling of guns to Negroes. There is therefore only one thing left to do; save our money and leave a town which will neither protect our lives and property, nor give us a fair trial in the courts, but takes us out and murders us in cold blood when accused by white persons."

Her advice was widely heeded. Indeed she had to take her own advice when her constant exposure of "lynching for profit" made her a popular target of those same racial supremacists she attacked through the media.

Taking the common migration path to Chicago Ida met and married attorney F.L. Barnett who also was the editor of one of Chicago's earliest black newspapers. Her marriage in no way slowed her passion for reform. While in Chicago she went on to become a founding member of the NAACP, successfully opposed Chicago's proposed racially segregated school system and was an early opponent of Booker T. Washington's policies.

Mrs. Wells-Barnett became one of of the first African-American women in the United States to run for public office when she ran for the Illinois state legislature. One year later, in 1931, Ida B. Wells-Barnett died at the age of 69, a constant and loyal servant of her community.