Ida B. Wells (1862–1931) was an African-American journalist, newspaper editor, suffragist, sociologist, and an early leader in the civil rights movement. Born into slavery in Holly Springs, Mississippi, Wells and her family were freed by the Emancipation Proclamation of 1863. Despite losing her parents to yellow fever when she was sixteen, Wells attended Fisk University and became a teacher. Politically active since her youth, she also became a writer on race issues and campaigned against lynching; in this latter capacity she published two influential pamphlets and traveled throughout the United States and the United Kingdom. Wells also helped establish the National Association of Colored Women and the National Afro-American Council.Photograph: Mary Garrity; restoration: Adam Cuerden
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