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.ter.Protesters were taught to cross their hands Silverman, Jerry.Songs of Protest and Civil Rights.across their chests in order to hold the hands of the New York: Chelsea House, 1992.persons at their sides in order to emphasize their Beth M.Waggenspackinterconnectedness, and in the words of one pro-tester to wear down ugly by beauty, confrontviolence with love. The freedom riders who be- Wells, Ida B.Y'Wells, Id a B.gan challenging transportation segregation lawsJuly 16, 1862, Holly Springs, Miss. Mar.25,in 1961 spread the song into the Deep South.1931, Chicago, Ill.: African American civilMartin Luther King, Jr. s August, 1963, March onrights activist and journalist.Washington brought the song into the livingroomsof the entire nation as folksinger Joan Báez en- For forty years Ida Bell Wells (also known as Idajoined marchers to join her in singing the anthem.B.Wells-Barnett) was a voice for equality, justice,On March 7, 1965, responding to the need for and human dignity.She forcefully articulated issuescontinuing action to sustain Civil Rights movement that stimulated the struggles for civil, political, andsupport, King initiated an all-out drive for black economic rights for African Americans.Her clarionvoting registration by leading a protest march from calls awoke the conscience of the nation, and herSelma to Montgomery, Alabama.Spurred by the progressive ideas of reform were at the forefront ofviolence he witnessed along the way as unarmed the struggle for social justice.marchers were brutally beaten President Lyndon B.Wells was born into slavery a half year beforeJohnson delivered the Voting Rights Act of 1965 to Abraham Lincoln issued the Emancipation Procla-Congress.In a compassionate speech accompany- mation.At the age of sixteen she assumed guardi-897 Wells, Ida B.anship of five siblings when her parents and a baby community citizens opened a grocery store thatbrother succumbed to yellow fever.After moving to competed successfully against a white grocery storeMemphis, Tennessee, she spent the next years of across the street.Resentment grew between theher life teaching, furthering her education at Fisk two businesses until a minor riot resulted in theUniversity in Nashville, and developing her writing incarceration of Wells s friends.Later, a white mobability by participating in a lyceum at LeMoyne stormed the county jail, removed the men, shot,Normal Institute.and hanged them.Voice for Civil Rights Wells matured during This event stimulated Wells to use her editorialthe Reconstruction era, but as she reached adult- voice to challenge the lynch law and to informhood in the 1880 s Jim Crow laws and a series of people that lynchings, which were usually justifiedantiblack federal and local court decisions dis- by accusations of rape, were actually an excuse tosolved the protection afforded to African Americans get rid of Negroes who were acquiring wealth andby the Civil Rights Act of 1875.The restitution of property. In the Free Speech, she entreated thesegregation in public transportation immediately black community to leave a town which will nei-affected her.On May 4, 1884, while she was travel- ther protect our lives and property, nor give us aing through Tennessee to a new teaching assign- fair trial in the courts, but takes us out and murdersment on a first-class train ticket, a conductor told us in cold blood. About two thousand peopleher to move from the Ladies car to the Jim Crow heeded her plea and left Memphis to move west,car.Wells vigorously resisted but was physically while those who remained staged a boycott of theforced off the train.She then sued the Chesapeake, streetcar line, driving it near to bankruptcy.WellsOhio, and Southwestern Railroad.A lower court exploded the myth that vindicated lynching byawarded her five hundred dollars, but Tennessee s stating that many sexual liaisons between blacksupreme court later reversed the decision.men and white women were of mutual consent.InDiscouraged by the outcome of her case, Wells response, a mob from the enraged white commu-inaugurated her struggle for civil rights by employ- nity destroyed her Free Press office in May, 1892,ing her journalistic skills.She became an editor of while she was attending the African Methodist Epis-the Evening Star and another weekly, The Living copal Church convention in Philadelphia.A whiteWay.Under the pen name Iola, she wrote a newspaper openly called for lynching and threat-weekly column on everyday problems in African ened Wells s life.American life.Her early writings focused on her Wells, however, persisted in denouncing lynch-experience fighting Jim Crow laws and later ing.Writing for the New York Age and otherevolved into broader issues concerning African weekly African American newspapers, she com-Americans.Soon, she was contributing articles ad- posed a series of articles detailing the lynchings ofvancing the cause of civil rights to prestigious 728 black people during the decade before 1892.newspapers, as well as to small church-related These articles revealed the evils and false reasoningnewspapers.associated with lynching, earned her a nationalAlways the activist, Wells was elected secretary audience, and were the basis of two pamphlets:of the Colored Press Association (later known as Southern Horrors: Lynch Law in All Its Phasesthe Afro-American Press Association) in 1887.By (1892) and A Red Record: Tabulated Statistics and1889 she owned part of the Memphis Free Speech Alleged Causes of Lynchings in the United States,and Headlight.As its editor, she was fearless.Her 1892-1893-1894 (1895).militant editorials protested racial injustices includ- From 1892 to 1895, Wells conducted an-ing disfranchisement, house burning, lynching, tilynching speaking tours in the United States, Eng-and segregated schools.Pressing for equal rights land, and Scotland.One result was the formation ofand full citizenship, she joined the Afro-American the British Anti-Lynching Society, which imposedLeague, an organization founded by Fortune T.international pressure on the problem.Similar so-Thomas Fortune.cieties originated in the United States.In 1893Voice Against Lynching In March, 1892, an Wells, who was offended that the World s Colum-event determined the future direction of all of bian Exposition in Chicago would not allow anWells s energies.On the outskirts of Memphis, African American pavilion, acquired financial helpthree black friends of hers who were outstanding from Frederick Douglass and published a widely898 Wells, Ida B.read antilynching pamphlet, The Reason Why the Upon arriving in Chicago, she had joined the Na-Colored American Is Not in the World s Columbian tional Woman Suffrage Association.When womenExposition.Additionally, she began a national received the vote in Illinois local elections, shemovement against lynching by forming the Na- organized the Alpha Suffrage Club, the state s firsttional Association of Colored Women (NACW) in suffrage organization for black women.In Chicago,1896.She also served as secretary of the National she also marched with whites who were urgingAfro-American Council from 1898 to 1902 and passage of a federal suffrage amendment and, inheaded its antilynching speakers bureau.To protest 1913, paraded in Washington, D.C.Later that year,a brutal lynching in South Carolina and to ask for she returned to Washington as a member of thenational legislation to outlaw the national crime, executive committee of the National Equal Rightsshe personally led a delegation to meet President League.William McKinley in 1898.As a result, he made a In 1930 she ran for an Illinois state senate in thespeech against lynching, but the atrocities contin- Republican primary as an independent.Defeatedued
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