MEMPHIS, Tenn. — Saturday, July 16, 2022, is the 160th birthday of Ida B. Wells, a Mid-South pioneer in the Civil Rights movement.
Friday, the Ida B. Wells museum unveiled new bricks in honor of the leader herself.
ABC24 visual storyteller Shiela Whaley visited the museum to learn more about Wells' legacy.
“Her life started here and she went on to become one of our nation’s greatest leaders. To me she’s a she-ro,” said Rev. Leona Harris, Executive Director of the Ida B. Wells Museum.
“This is where she had her experience as a teacher,” said Harris. “She wanted to write. She was a great journalist. And not only that, she was an investigative journalist.”
And Wells was on a mission.
“To fight Jim Crow-ism. That was one of her major, early challenges in her life. She was our early Civil Rights leader.”
Events in Wells’ life led her to the path that would help so many others.
“These three men who were friends of hers, the guys got put in jail. And when they put them in jail, the Ku Klux Klan took a ride. They broke them out of jail and took them out and hanged them. And that devastated Ida B Wells. And that’s when she learned her anti-lynching crusade. And she thought that until she passed.”
Her fight wasn’t just in the south, or even just the U.S.
“She took her cry all the way to England. And she organized women and groups there to put pressure on America about this lynching,” said Harris. “She was one of the founders of the NAACP. The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People.”
She not only fought for African-Americans, but also for women’s rights.
“She was involved in the women’s movement. And because of that, you and I can vote today. I think that’s one of the greatest things she did,” said Harris. “Anything Ida B. Wells came in contact with and didn’t agree with and felt that it was wrong, she would always put herself in there to try to make it right. Ida B. Wells was a crusader for justice.”