Remembering Ida B. Wells’s Legacy: An Educator, Feminist, and Anti-Lynching Civil Rights Leader
These days, my great-grandmother, Ida B. Wells, is referred to as a “badass” and a “boss.” She was an educator, a journalist, a feminist, a businesswoman, a newspaper owner, a public speaker, a suffragist, a civil rights activist, and a women’s club leader. She was a founder of the NAACP, a founder of the National Association of Colored Women, a founder of the Alpha Suffrage Club, a founder of the Negro Fellowship League. She wrote, she spoke, she traveled, she challenged the racist and sexist norms of her time that often involved violence and terror. Although she endured enormous criticism and threats to her life, she never shut up. She never gave up. She fought for equality and justice for almost 50 years.