Ida B. Wells: The Civil Rights Movement

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As America gained its Independence in 1776, two groups, blacks and women, were disenfranchised from the newly found freedom of the nation. However, there were no shortage of individuals and groups that worked towards equal rights and justice for all. For African-Americans, and women in some respect, one of the trailblazers who fought racism, inequality, and injustice was Ida B. Wells. Born into slavery six months before President Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation, Wells was a fierce civil rights leader, activist, suffragist, and journalist; but was best known as a fearless anti-lynching crusader.
The oldest of eight children, Ida B. Wells was born in Holly Spring, Mississippi in 1862 to James Wells and Elizabeth Warrenton -- who …show more content…

2) -- at the next stop, Wells got off the train and promptly after returning to Memphis she sued Chesapeake and Ohio Railroad Company. Wells hired an African-American attorney who worked with a White attorney to win Wells a judgment of $200 against the Railroad. The railroad appealed the verdict. In a second case of discrimination, again involving Chesapeake and Ohio Railroad Company, Wells sued and this time was rewarded $500. The railroad appealed again and this time the two verdicts were overturned by the Tennessee Supreme Court. Disappointed by the outcome, Wells turned her "sharp intellect and resolve to fighting discrimination at a time when few else dared." (Schiff, pp. 4). Many wanted to hear about the experiences of the young African-American who stood up against the railroad, but this was just one fight of many to come for the young …show more content…

Also during this time, Jim Crow Laws did not help matters. Violence against African-Americans increased and lynching was the form of punishment for any blacks, and Whites in some cases, who angered and disapproved of white supremacy. In 1892 Thomas Moss -- among Wells closest friends -- along with two other black men, Calvin McDowell and Henry Stewart, where lynched. The three men were the owners of People's Grocery and their small grocery had taken away customers from competing White businesses. A group of angry White men attacked People's grocery, but the owners fought back, shooting one of the attackers. The White men turned out to be plain clothes sheriff deputies. The owners of People's Grocery were arrested, but a lynch-mob broke into the jail, dragged them away from town, and brutally murdered all three grocery store owners. Outrage by the lynching of the three black men, Wells wrote, lynching “was an excuse to get Negros who were acquiring wealth and property, and thus keep the race terrorized and keep the nigger down.” (A Passion for Justice,

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