Ida B. Wells

The US civil rights movement would have been very different without Ida B. Wells. The brilliant writer and activist helped found the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) and worked tirelessly to stop the lynching of Black people in the South. She was born to enslaved parents in Mississippi in 1862. Freed by the Emancipation Proclamation, she made Memphis, Tennessee, her home until threats from white people made it dangerous for her to stay. She then relocated to Chicago and became an important voice in the fight for women’s right to vote.