“She fought a lonely and almost single-handed fight, with the
single-mindedness of a crusader, long before men or women of any race
entered the arena; and the measure of success she achieved goes far
beyond the credit she has been given in the history of the
country.”—Alfreda M. Duster
Ida B. Wells is an American icon of truth telling. Born to slaves,
she was a pioneer of investigative journalism, a crusader against
lynching, and a tireless advocate for suffrage, both for women and
for African Americans. She co-founded the NAACP, started the Alpha
Suffrage Club in Chicago, and was a leader in the early civil rights
movement, working alongside W. E. B. Du Bois, Madam C. J. Walker,
Mary Church Terrell, Frederick Douglass, and Susan B. Anthony.
This engaging
memoir, originally published 1970, relates Wells’s private life as
a mother as well as her public activities as a teacher, lecturer, and
journalist in her fight for equality and justice. This updated
edition includes a new foreword by Eve L. Ewing, new images, and a
new afterword by Ida B. Wells’s great-granddaughter, Michelle
Duster.
