Ida B. Wells

1862 – 1931

Ida Bell Wells-Barnett was an American investigative journalist, sociologist, and civil rights leader who, throughout the 1890s, documented the systematic lynching of African Americans across the South in works including Southern Horrors and The Red Record. Driven from Memphis after a white mob destroyed her newspaper office in 1892, she continued her anti-lynching campaign nationally and internationally, founding the National Association of Colored Women's Clubs and helping found the NAACP. She was posthumously awarded a Pulitzer Prize special citation in 2020 for her reporting.

Last checked: May 10, 2026, 1:06 PM