How did Ida B. Wells-Barnett become an activist?

Journalist. Activist. Leader. Who was Ida B. Wells-Barnett? Ida B. Wells was born into slavery on July 16, 1862, in Holly Springs, Mississippi. When she was a teenager, her parents died of yellow fever, leaving her to work as a teacher to support and care for her siblings. In 1891 Ida B. Wells turned to journalism and began to write newspaper articles criticizing the lack of educational opportunities for Black children. She became the editor of the Memphis Free Speech and Headlight and purchased an interest to become the paper’s co-owner. In 1892 three local men, one of whom was a close friend of hers, were lynched by a mob, driving her to begin an investigative mission to report about lynchings. For months she traveled throughout the South, investigating and researching hundreds of lynchings to debunk myths about the victims. Wells published her exposé in a series of editorials and eventually in a book called A Red Record. Because of her work, her office was attacked by a group of people who burned her printing press and threatened further violence if she stayed in Memphis. Ida B. Wells then moved to Chicago, where she married Ferdinand L. Barnett and adopted the last name Wells-Barnett. She continued to contribute to local journals and organized support for movements including anti-lynching campaigns and the struggle for women’s suffrage. Wells-Barnett founded what may have been the first Black women’s suffrage group, Chicago’s Alpha Suffrage Club. She also helped found the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP). Ida B. Wells-Barnett died on March 25, 1931, at the age of 68. Her autobiography, Crusade for Justice, was published posthumously 39 years later, in 1970.