EXPOSING THE UNSPOKEN TRUTH: IDA B. WELLS
Historical Context
America in the 1800s
The Civil War was fought mainly over slavery. While Northerners started questioning the immorality and hypocrisy of slavery, it remained fundamental to the South.
"I am naturally anti-slavery. If slavery is not wrong, nothing is wrong. I cannot remember when I did not so think, and feel." - Abraham Lincoln
Thure de Thulstrup.
Battle of Spottsylvania. 1887.
(Library of Congress)
Sergeant A.M. Chandler of the 44th Mississippi Infantry Regiment, Co. F., and Silas Chandler, family slave. (Library of Congress) .
"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness."
~Thomas Jefferson. United States Declaration of Independence. 1776.
(Library of Congress)
Who was Ida B. Wells?
Wells, born July 1862 in Holly Springs, Mississippi, spent a brief stint as a slave before the Emancipation Proclamation.
Despite being promised freedom, it was continuously denied; this was evident in the South where Wells became an advocate for Black rights.
Ida B. Wells
(New York Public Library)
Ida B. Wells' House
(Chicago Landmarks Commission)
(Library of Congress)
Thomas Nast.
The Union as it was The lost cause, worse than slavery. 1874.
Why did she break the silence?
While on a train, Wells was forced to move carts because she was black. Her lawsuit against the Railroad Company was overturned because of a white "justice" system.
"I resisted all the time, and never consented to go. My dress was torn in the struggle, one sleve [sic] was almost torn off. Everybody in the car seemed to sympathize with the conductor, and were against me."
~ Ida B. Wells
Thomas Moss as illustrated in The Appeal. (Library of Congress)
The murder of her friend Thomas Moss by a lynch mob ignited Wells' anti-lynching crusade.
"THIS IS A WHITE MAN'S ORGANIZATION, exalting the Caucasian Race and teaching the doctrine of White Supremacy.
Resident of Washington State. Ideals of the Ku Klux Klan. 1920.
(The Jackson Sun)
Ida B. Wells’ lawsuit against Chesapeake, Ohio, and Southwestern Railroad Company before the state Supreme Court, 1885. (Digital Public Library of America)