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Ida B. Wells: The First Anti-Lynching Movement

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In 1862, eleven days after the 4th of July, Ida Bell Wells was born into slavery in Holly Springs in Confederate Mississippi. Shortly after she was born the Emancipation Proclamation was signed and baby Wells and her parents were free. Well’s parents took advantage of their freedom--her father, James, who was a child of the plantation master, continued to work as a carpenter, and her mother, Elizabeth, was a cook. Well’s parents had eight children and intended all of them, “...to go to school and learn all [they] could.” Unfortunately, Ida parents and one of her brothers died during the Yellow Fever Epidemic of 1878, and at sixteen she decided to raise her siblings by herself, and by becoming a school teacher she was able to support her and …show more content…
Wells dedicated herself to exposing the harsh racial injustice in America by starting the first anti-lynching movement. Approximately 3,200 black people were lynched between 1880 to 1930, two of whom were friends of Wells. As a full time journalist, Wells used words as her weapon to combat the lynching of black people and becoming the leader of an anti lynching campaign. She became a co-owner and co-editor of the black newspaper in Memphis, Free Speech. Over the course of a decade, she documented and photographed over 700 lynchings. Wells relays in a speech to a crowd in Chicago that, “...lynching mob cuts off ears, toes, and fingers, strips off flesh, and distributes portions of the body as souvenirs among the crowd.” She shined the light in the darkest corners of America and in turn made many white Americans angry and because of her fortitude her own life was …show more content…
In 1893 and 1894 she used spoken word to spread her message in Great Britain. The British took interest in Wells earnest cause. Sir John Grost, the Duke of Argyll, was captivated by Wells advocacy, so he founded the London Anti-Lynching Committee--the first of many committees to be created throughout Great Britain and America. During her tour in England she was able to gain American support when the British discovered six black men were lynched in Memphis.Not only did she gain the support of diplomats, but her efforts produced results: the amount of lynchings decreased from 235 in 1892 to 107 seven years later. Ida, as one woman, managed to institute change across the world.
During her crusade against lynching, she worked for other causes and founded multiple organizations. In 1909, she contributed to the establishment of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, the NAACP. A year later, Wells created the Negro Fellowship League to provide relief for black people migrating from the south to Chicago. Three years later, she established the National Association of Colored Women, possibility one of the first female black suffrage organizations. Within four years, Wells created three major organizations that benefited African Americans across the

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