Ida B. WellsIda B. Wells (1862-1931) was an editor and journalist who later led the American crusade against lynching. Working closely with African American community leaders and American suffragists, Wells worked to raise gender issues in the "Race Question" and race issues in the "Woman Question." Wells was born the daughter of slaves in Holly Springs, Mississippi, on July 16, 1862. During Reconstruction, she was educated at a Freedman school in Missouri, Rust University, and began teaching at age fourteen years old. In 1884, she moved to Memphis, Tennessee, where she continued teaching while attending Fisk University during summer sessions. In Tennessee, in particular, she was appalled by the poor treatment she and other African Americans received. After she was forcibly removed from her seat for refusing to ride in a "colored car" on the Chesapeake & Ohio Railroad, the Tennessee Supreme Court dismissed her lawsuit against the railroad for violation of his civil rights in 1877. This event and the legal struggle that followed it. However, this encouraged Wells to continue to oppose racial injustice against African Americans. She entered journalism in addition to school teaching, and in 1891, after writing several newspaper articles criticizing the educational opportunities available to African American students, her teaching contract was not renewed. De facto banned from teaching, she invested her savings in an integrated...