TEXT ` ⌠Wells-Barnett, Ida Bell1862╨1931journalist and reformerBorn in Holly Springs, Mississippi, on July 16, 1862, Ida Wells was the daughter of slaves. She was educated at Rust University, a freedmen╒s school in Holly Springs, and at fourteen began teaching in a country school. She continued as a teacher after moving to Memphis, Tennessee, in 1884 and attended Fisk University during several summer sessions. In 1887 the Tennessee supreme court, reversing a circuit court decision, ruled against her in a suit she had brought against the Chesapeake & Ohio Railroad for having been forcibly removed from her seat after she had refused to give it up for one in a ╥colored only╙ car. In 1891, in consequence of some newspaper articles she had written critical of the education offered African-American children, her teaching contract was not renewed. She thereupon turned to journalism, buying an interest in the Memphis Free Speech. In 1892, after three friends of hers had been killed by a mob, Wells began an editorial campaign against lynching that quickly led to the sacking of the newspaper╒s office during her absence. She moved to New York City, where she continued her anti-lynching crusade, first as a staff writer for the New York Age and then as a lecturer and organizer of anti-lynching societies. She traveled to speak in a number of major cities and twice visited Great Britain for the cause. In June 1895 she married Ferdinand L. Barnett, a Chicago lawyer, editor, and public official. She then adopted the name Wells-Barnett. From that time she restricted her travels, but she was very active in Chicago affairs. She contributed to the Conservator, her husband╒s newspaper, and to other local journals, published a detailed look at lynching in A Red Record, 1895, and was active in organizing local African-American women in various causes from the anti-lynching campaign to the suffrage movement. From 1898 to 1902 she served as secretary of the National Afro-American Council, and in 1910 she founded and became first president of the Negro Fellowship League. From 1913 to 1916 she served as a probation officer of the Chicago municipal court. She was militant in her demand for justice for African-Americans and in her insistence that it was to be won by their own efforts. While she took part in the 1909 meeting of the Niagara Movement, she would have nothing to do with the less radical National Association for the Advancement of Colored People that sprang from it. She died in Chicago on March 25, 1931. Nstyl ` ! ¬ 5¬ " 5¬ ; !I ö !I º !I ½ 5¬ ¼ !I ╪ !I Σ !I ü !I î !I φ !I ∙ !I ë 5¬ è !I link `
