9 minute read
Ida B. the Queen
by Hannah Ross
Ida B. Wells-Barnett exposed the evils of lynching in the post-Reconstruction South, worked for women’s su rage, edited and co-owned several newspapers and was the mother of four children. Decades later, her legacy lives on through her great-granddaughter, Michelle Duster, who recently released her book about Wells, “Ida B. the Queen.” The book features an excerpt of a letter to Wells from Frederick Douglass, who mentored her and worked alongside her, as well as excerpts from Wells-Barnett’s diary and pamphlets on lynching, along with illustrations by Los Angeles the patron saint digital artist Monica Ahanonu.
said Sarah Hollenbeck, co-owner of Women & Children First Bookstore, at the Jan. 28 virtual book launch of “Ida B. The Queen.”
Born into slavery, Ida B. Wells (1862-1931) attended the college her father helped found. She used to read the paper to her father, which helped her confidence and made her into the outspoken woman she became.
“One of my goals with ‘Ida B. the Queen’ was to humanize her,” Duster said in a telephone interview. “I think, rightfully so, people are in awe of her and they were inspired by her and she was an almost mythical character. I wanted to know what part of her was like me and I hope that when people read this they will feel like ‘she’s just like me.’ She was a multi- dimensional person. She did have fear, she did have disappointment, she did have setbacks, she did have doubt. But she kept going. And I hope that will inspire people.
“How many people look at their great-grandmother as a superhero?” Duster said. “She was just family. You’re so close that it’s hard to get perspective of how other people view that person. I get the impression that it was not easy for my grandmother to grow up as the daughter of Ida B. Wells. Just imagine what it’s like to grow up with a parent who is constantly criticized, who is considered dangerous, who is receiving death threats. That was my grandmother’s reality and I think she wanted to shield us from that type of experience.”
Wells-Barnett received regular threats throughout her life because of her work. On March 9, 1892 in Memphis Tennessee, a white mob lynched three Black grocery store owners for having more business than the local white-owned grocery store. Lynching is defined as a form of violence in which a mob, under the pretext of administering justice (but without trial), executes a presumed offender, often after inflicting torture and corporal mutilation. After this event, Wells wrote an editorial in the Memphis Free Speech, her newspaper – the beginning of her decades-long crusade against lynching –and while she was away, received news that her article had incited a riot, which destroyed her newspaper and ran her co-editor out of town. She herself was threatened with lynching if she ever returned to Memphis. She moved to Chicago in 1893 and continued to report on lynchings across the U.S. and the importance of ending this cruel and unjust practice in the newspaper, which she purchased from Ferdinand L. Barnett, whom she married in 1895.
Ida B. Wells-Barnett's home.
This, however, was not the first time Wells had created a stir. In 1883, when she was just 21 years old, Wells refused to give up her seat in a first-class ladies’ railroad car. The conductor asked her to move to what was then called the “colored car,” and so in 1884 Wells sued the Chesapeake, Ohio & Southwestern Railroad Co. She won the lawsuit and was awarded $500. The Tennessee Supreme Court later overturned the ruling.
Around the time Illinois gave women limited voting rights, Wells-Barnett established the Alpha Suffrage Club, the first Black women’s su rage club in the state. And in 1913, Wells-Barnett famously integrated the women’s Suffrage March in Washington D.C. by waiting until the parade had started and then moving up to march with the white Illinois delegation, with whom she’d worked side by side.
“She was very uncompromising, she had extremely high expectations for people, especially those in leadership positions,” Duster said. “She was unrelenting in holding people to certain standards.
And if she had that expectation for other people, she seemed to have that for herself. But she was also an incredible optimist, because she seemed to believe that by exposing inequality, by exposing injustice, by exposing the level of lawlessness and terrorism, that things would change because people are aware of what’s going on. She really seemed to think that if people know, they will help make this change.”
Ida B. Wells-Barnett with her children: Herman Kohlsaat Barnett was born 1897, Charles Aked Barnett was born 1896, Ida Bell Wells Barnett 1901 and Alfreda Marguerita Barnett (married name Duster) born 1904.
Charles Bethea, the Andrew W. Mellon Director of Collections and Curatorial A airs at the Chicago History Museum agreed in a virtual interview with Hollenbeck’s title as the patron saint of Chicago history, saying, “She was there at the dawning of the women’s su rage movement, she was giving voice not only for women, but specifically African American women because when that movement came to pass, they started excluding Black women. And Ida was there to, again, right that wrong and talk about the issue. She was one of the people who stood up and spoke out vehemently against the hypocrisy. You want women to stand together in solidarity, but you don’t want us at the convention. She was a huge part of that and she doesn’t get that credit. And again, women’s right to vote, housing discrimination, orphans, children, she was there. She was at the beginning of all this and I would say that, patron saint of Chicago history, I like that.
“More people should know about Ida B. Wells-Barnett just for the simple fact that if she were a man, considering all these things that she was able to accomplish in her life-time, her name would be much more widely recognized.
“Ida was an outspoken woman during her time period,” Bethea said. “She fought for justice in many ways throughout her lifetime. Where she saw something wrong, she wanted to right it. She was uncompromising when it came to the fight for rights, justice and equality. Frederick Douglass called her brave; I would call her fearless. She is the epitome of Maya Angelou’s definition of a phenomenal woman.”
Duster said that many remarkable women today are continuing Wells-Barnett’s legacy. In her book, she cites Nikole Hannah-Jones, Lucy McBath and Brittany “Bree” Newsome.
Hannah-Jones, a Pulitzer Prize winning investigative journalist for the New York Times Magazine, reports on racial injustice. She initiated the 1619 Project, which commemorates the 400-year history of slavery in the U.S.; she has written extensively about the failure to enforce the 1968 Fair Housing Act; she co-founded the Ida B. Wells Society for Investigative Reporting, which helps reporters of color break into the field, and last year, she won a Pulitzer for the commentary, the same year Wells was awarded her posthumous Pulitzer Prize Special Citation.
Journalist Nikole Hannah-Jones
(James Estrin photo)
McBath is a Georgia congresswoman. While Wells-Barnett fought against lynching, McBath uses her position to battle gun violence and police brutality. In 2012, McBath’s son, Jordan, was fatally shot at a gas station while playing loud music, which fueled her fight for stronger gun laws and led to her successful campaign for U.S. representative in 2018 after 30 years as a Delta Airlines flight attendant.
Since taking office in January 2019, McBath has been a part of several bipartisan landmark legislations to help end gun violence, promote small businesses and improve Medicare and other healthcare laws. “The Congresswoman proudly represents Georgia’s Sixth Congressional District, but the most important title she will ever hold is ‘Jordan’s Mom,’” notes the bio on her congressional website.
Georgia Democratic congresswoman Rep. Lucy McBath.
(house.gov photo)
Newsome is an American filmmaker, musician, speaker and activist from South Carolina. In June 2015, Newsome went to the South Carolina statehouse to express her thoughts about the murders of nine Black people at a Bible study in Charleston.
At the time, the Confederate flag flew outside the statehouse. The day before, President Obama called for the flag to be taken down, but before anyone could reach it, Newsome climbed the flagpole and took it down herself. She was arrested and when a local reporter asked why she didn’t wait until lawmakers had voted to take it down, she responded, “What is there to vote on? It’s time for people to have the courage...to step up in love and nonviolence. We have to do the right thing or else it won’t stop.”
A few weeks later, lawmakers passed the vote to officially take it down.
Two years later, Newsome reflected on the historic day in an interview with Vox: “I grew up with my grandmother who was raised in Greenville, who told me about her experiences seeing the Ku Klux Klan beat her neighbor and things like that. The massacre in Charleston brought a refocus on the flag.” She and a group of people had been planning this event for several weeks before acting on it, and Newsome admits that she felt victorious in the moment. However, she recognized even then, that there was a long way to go.
Multi-platform artist and activist Bree Newsome.
(courtesy photo)
Duster sees her great-grandmother in the actions of these women and she hopes to inspire many more generations of women to follow them. She understands, however, how daunting their task is.
As Duster writes toward the end of “Ida B. the Queen,” “The next generation of young women can look at Ida. B. Wells and realize that they, too, are capable of tremendous actions. If she could believe in herself enough to not be limited by the circumstances of her birth, so can they. If she could fight for liberty and justice, so can they. Because they too are important parts of this world. And their voices matter.”
Duster raised a substantial amount of money for an Ida B. Wells Monument that will be accompanied by supportive art pieces in the Chicago Bronzeville neighborhood at 37th Street and Langley Boulevard, which is on the land where the Ida B. Wells housing development once stood. She has been working on this project for over 13 years with the Ida B. Wells Commemorative Art Committee. The monument will be created by world-renowned Chicago sculptor Richard Hunt.
The Ida B. Wells housing project in 1942
(Library of Congress)
“We chose a monument versus a statue because Ida is so multi-dimensional that we wanted people to be able to interpret who Ida was to them,” Duster said. A secondary section will follow, though details on this project are still in progress; the idea is to give people a unique way to reflect on Wells-Barnett’s work and legacy, as well as celebrate other leaders and the history of the community. This area also has a historical marker as the site of the Ida B. Wells Homes and the honorary street Ida B. Wells Way. There are several other tributes to Wells-Barnett in Chicago, including Ida B. Wells Drive and more around the country. In her hometown of Holly Springs, Mississippi, the house and grounds where her enslaved parents once worked and lived is now a museum dedicated to her. These markers serve as a reminder that the work is far from over and an inspiration to keep fighting.
