Ida B. Wells-How the Pen was Proven Mightier than the Sword

On July 16, 1862, in Holly Springs, Mississippi, a little girl named Ida Bell was born to the slaves James and Elizabeth Wells. Little did her doting parents know that Ida would become one of the bravest journalists and activists in the world.

Ida grew up with seven siblings and parents who passed down a desire for education. James and Elizabeth Wells were politically active, strongly supporting the Reconstruction Era. Ida enrolled in Rust College, but she was expelled for sparking an argument with the college president.

After this setback, Ida took a trip to visit her grandmother. While on vacation there, an epidemic of yellow fever swept through her home, and her parents and young brother succumbed to the disease. Wells, faced with the task of raising her remaining siblings, moved them all to Memphis, Tennessee, and became a teacher at just sixteen years old. Some of her students treated her disrespectfully due to her youth, but she didn’t quit.

Then came a turning point in Ida’s life. On May 4, 1884, when Ida was twenty-one years old, she experienced injustice and stood up to it. She was demanded to give up her seat in a train although she had paid for a ticket, and she refused. She was then injured by the railroad company, and she sued them shortly after. She won her case locally, but lost at the state level. Furious with this unfairness, Ida channeled her energy into becoming a journalist so as to expose racial profiling and injustice.

Soon, Ida was unstoppable. She bravely investigated lynchings of African Americans, facing threats and danger so serious that she was forced to move from Memphis to Chicago in an effort to find safety. She fought for both women’s rights and racial equality, and she did much of it with a husband and four children. She died due to a kidney infection at sixty-eight, but her work lives on. She is widely honored and looked up to by many. She was a brave, honest woman and a true hero to the world.