"They Say" Ida B. Wells and the Reconstruction of Race - New Narratives in American History

Few students have had the opportunity to consider the contrasting social identties pursued by African Americans following abolotion of slavery, nor to understand how whites' skewed construction of those aspirations were a reaction against them. The story of Ida Wells provides a useful narrative frame for understanding the treacherous crosscurrents of race that shaped social identites.Wells was born into slavery in 1862, of mixed parentage, and raised in Mississippi. Her thrist for education and high social aspiration, combined with her strong personality, led her to speak out in ways often at odds with Victorian feminine ideals. She was expelled from Rusk Cllege in a dispute with its white president; she taught school in Memphis, where she brought a suit against the Chesapeake reailroad after being thrown off for refusing to leave the first-class cas; and she spoke out against the increasing segregation in the Memphis school system. After race riots and lynchings in Memphis in 1892, she embarked full-blown on the career for which she is now remembered, as an outspoken writer and lecturer against lynching.