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Ida B. Wells was born on July 16, 1962 in Mississippi. Her father, a carpenter, and her mother, a cook, had been former slaves. Their occupations allowed Wells to enjoy a financially stable childhood. At sixteen years old, Wells found herself orphaned when her parents died from yellow fever. She then dropped out of school and took on teaching jobs to care for her five younger siblings. During her commute to work one day, Wells was forcibly removed from the ladies\u2019 car, despite having paid for a first-class ticket, because said car was reserved for white women. Wells sued the Chesapeake and Ohio Railroad Company, and although she lost the case, this incident inspired Wells to write a fiery op-ed that was reprinted by black newspapers nationwide.<\/p>\n
Wells\u2019 outspoken articles led to her being fired from her teaching job, but she quickly took on a job as editor-in-chief at the black-owned newspaper The Memphis Free Speech and Headlight. It was while working for the Free Speech that Wells published Southern Horrors, an in-depth analysis of anti-black lynching and white mob behavior in the South. When Wells\u2019 first stumbled upon the lynching issue, it was being framed as something that only affected criminal black men. These black men were usually accused of raping white women and thus deserved to be lynched. It was not until a close friend of Wells was lynched that Wells came to realize the true motivations of these white mobs. Her friend had not been a criminal, and certainly not a rapist. He was an educated black business owner, church goer, and a well-respected member of their community. His only crime was owning a successful black grocery store that rivaled a nearby white grocery store. His untimely murder spurred Wells\u2019 lifelong anti-lynching activism.
\nShe investigated all the lynching cases in her area. She found that many of these black men had not even been accused of rape, and the ones that had had not actually committed any rape. She published her findings in Southern Horrors, where she exposed the cruel and hypocritical nature of white mobs. Wells suggested that the lynching of black men by white mobs was motivated, not by a need to bring rapists to justice, but rather by white men\u2019s fear that black people were becoming too successful. White men saw the increase in educated black people, the economic success of black businesses, and the financial independence of a growing black middle class. These white men, who had once held a monopoly over wealth, saw their power over the black population steadily diminishing. They used lynching as a way to reinforce control over black people.<\/p>\n
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