Ida Bell Wells-Barnett Ida Bell Wells was a daughter of slaves
who had stayed on after emancipation as carpenter and cook for
their former owner. By the time she was 14, Wells had completed
teacher training at Rust University and was teaching in a rural
school for $25 a month. While teaching near Memphis, Wells
bought a half-interest in the Memphis Free Speech. She used the
paper to denounce lynchings, and to urge blacks to boycott
streetcars and to migrate west. The paper's office was destroyed
by a mob in 1882. After refusing a seat in a Jim Crow car, Wells
carried an unsuccessful suit to the Tennessee Supreme Court in
1887. Under the pen name of "Iola" she criticized the inadequacy
of schools for blacks. The Memphis school board dismissed her
from her job in 1891. In 1895, she married Ferdinand Lee
Barnett, editor of the Chicago Conservator. A daughter, Alfreda,
published her mother's autobiography with the title, Crusade for
Justice. Wells-Barnett was secretary of the National Afro-
American Council in 189