15 Pioneering Female Journalists

Ida B. Wells

2. Ida B. Wells

Some journalists make a point to remain as objective as possible throughout their careers. Bias, after all, has a tendency to make readers and editors nervous. However, it is as important that journalists speak when they see an injustice being committed. Sometimes, it is far more important to call something what it is and work for the end of an evil.

To that end, Ida B. Wells was as much an activist as she was a journalist. She had a lot of work cut out for her. As a black woman in the 19th and early 20th century United States, it surely must have seemed as if many forces were aligned against her and others like her. Yet, she saw that evil was being committed and often ignored. Wells decided to cast a light on these wrongs.

For much of her career, Wells’ work focused on lynching in the United States. She launched an investigative effort to bring attention to the horror, studying the supposed crimes that led to such violent ends for many black people (including some of her own friends).

With the support and funding of black communities, she finally published her findings in a pamphlet titled “Southern Horrors: Lynch Law in All its Phases”. She wrote that lynchings were used as a method of social control. Black people were often lynched for reasons such as failing to pay a debt or not being sufficiently deferent to whites in their community. Whites claimed that sexual assault on white women was a frequent cause. Wells laid waste to the transparently false claim.

Wells continued to publish in various news outlets, despite the fact that anger and violence directed at her deeply affected her life. Mobs destroyed the offices of one newspaper that published her editorial. She moved from Memphis to Chicago in order to protect her own life.

Though it’s not entirely relevant to her career, it’s worth noting that Ida refused to change her name upon marriage. She also continued to work after giving birth to two children, even bringing her young son with her on assignments and speaking engagements. She continued her work as a fierce voice speaking out against lynching until her death in 1931. Wells also become an advocate for urban reform and the African-American community in her adopted home of Chicago.