Ida B. Wells was born on July 16, 1862 on a plantation in Holly Springs, Mississippi. She was the oldest of eight children born to James and Lizzie Wells. Her father, who was enslaved, was a skilled carpenter and was able to make his own money and gain a kind of freedom that made him very active in fighting for freedom. He was a so-called “race man.”
In September 1878, tragedy struck the Wells family when both James and Lizzie succumbed to yellow fever following an epidemic that also claimed a sibling. Ida, who had been visiting her grandmother’s farm near Holly Springs at the time and was spared.
She and her remaining siblings were split up and she went to live with a relative in Memphis, Tennessee where she immersed herself in education and justice.
She went on to help create The Crisis with W.E.B. Dubois, where she went around the country chronicling cases of rape, murder and lynching. She gave voice to the voiceless and recorded their stories in the annals of history.
Ida B. Wells was recently named a History Change Maker on “The Karen Hunter Show.”