Ida B. Wells (Barnett)

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carpenters.) In Memphis, Ida got a job at a school in Woodstock. She took summer classes at Fisk University and at the LeMoyne Institute.
In May 1884, while Ida was on a train, the train conductor told her to give up her first class seat (which she had a ticket for) on the Chesapeake and Ohio Railroad and move to the smoker car. Ida refused to give up her seat and was forcefully dragged out of the car. She sued the railroad and won the lawsuit. She was awarded a settlement of $500. In 1887, the Tennessee Supreme Court overturned the lawsuit, regardless of the Civil Rights Act of 1875, and Ida had to pay $200 of court fees.
The same year, Ida started to publish articles about her views on segregation and the unfair treatment to African-Americans. Several articles were written about her overturned lawsuit and her frustration. Ida was offered an editorial position for the Evening Star, which she took in addition to teaching. She started writing editorials in Memphis ...

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to protest white businesses.
The unfair lynchings of three of her friends led Ida to look into the lynchings of other people. Ida researched and documented various lynchings and their given “reasons.” She exposed why numerous African-American men had been unfairly lynched and how if the eyes the white men that killed then, that it was all right. She learned that African-Americans were lynched for things like not “giving way to whites,” competing with white business, and being publicly drunk. Ida then compiled and published what she learned in a pamphlet called Southern Horrors: Lynch Law in All Its Phases. After Ida wrote an article the submitted the idea that most relationships ...

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