Ida Wells

Ida Wells was born a slave in 1862 in holly Springs, Mississippi. She managed to get an education and laater became a schoolteacher in Memphis. Wells greatly opposed segregation and Jim Crow; her first effort to fight these occured in 1884 when she refused to leave the first-class section of a train unless by force. She ultimately lost a lawsuit against the railroad company, as well as her job.

Wells became a lifelong fighter against lynching after a close friend was killed in this horrific manner in 1892. She wrote a book, A Red Record, to spread awareness about lynching, and she travelled and spoke all over the United States and overseas. Wells was a founder of the NAACP, as well. She contintued to oppose all forms of segregation until her death in 1931.

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