Ida B. Wells: A Chicago Stories Special Documentary

(upbeat music) - [Narrator] Coming up. - She was the ultimate agitator and feared because of it. - [Narrator] As racial terror reigned over the South... - There were close to 200 lynchings in Tennessee alone. - [Narrator] A young African-American woman struck back with her pen. - She was writing not just to inform, but to shame. - She says I'm gonna challenge you on this thread-bare lie that African-American men are lynched because they rape white women. - [Narrator] She fled to Chicago where sh

e emerged as a radical black leader. - [Woman] There was never a time when Ida B. Wells was not getting pushback, especially so in Chicago. - [Narrator] And became an inspiration to a new generation. - Black Lives Matter! - Black Lives Matter is addressing the same issues that Ida B. Wells took up in the 1880s and 90s. - [Narrator] Ida B. Wells, next on Chicago Stories. (instrumental music) (light music) It seemed the entire world had come to Chicago in the summer of 1893. (light music) Most wer

e so captivated by what they saw at the World's Fair, they were oblivious to what was missing. (light music) For one visitor, a 31-year-old African-American woman from Mississippi, the omission was glaring. (light music) - The Fair itself was a monument to extravagance, building after building constructed to display to the world how far America had advanced. (instrumental music) - [Narrator] Ida B. Wells had come to Chicago to point out what the fair's organizers had ignored. - She was angry abo

ut the exclusion of the African-American stories especially the progress that African-Americans had made. - Post-slavery, African-Americans started doing a lot of phenomenal things. They were elected to Congress. They were elected to public offices locally. They became doctors and business people. - [Narrator] But the signs of black culture Ida B. Wells found at the fair were mostly along the Midway and they represented stereotypes, not progress. Nancy Green, a 59-year-old former enslaved woman

proved a crowd favorite playing the role of a Southern mammy to promote a new pancake mix. Non-white nations were presented as savages or even sideshow acts. The slight was all the more appalling to Ida because she herself was a testament to the strides made by slavery's survivors. Since her emancipation, she had become a widely published journalist. - So it's like let's show the world what a great country we are without showing any of the contributions of black Americans. - [Narrator] Ida's fri

end, Frederick Douglass was the notable exception. He was the only black American in charge of a pavilion, one built by the nation of Haiti. - The Haitian government are the ones that invited him. So he wasn't even invited by the United States. And he was one of the most famous people in the country at that time. - [Narrator] The irony didn't escape Ida B. Wells. - [Actor] It seems strange to me that but for an accident Mr. Douglass would have had no part in the World's Fair because of race prej

udice in this country. Yet whenever he went out into the grounds he was literally swamped by white persons who wanted to shake his hand. (dramatic music) - [Narrator] And so Ida stood at the entrance to the Haitian pavilion handing out copies of a pamphlet. - [Actor] A clear plain statement of facts concerning the oppression put upon the colored people in this land of the free and home of the brave. - It's around 90 pages. It's really like a little book. And Ida is the only woman represented in

the book. - [Narrator] Wells had written it with Douglass and two other men. - She's also the one who raised the majority of the money to have the pamphlet published. So you have these three men that are willing to sort of be led by a woman so this to me is her publication. - [Actor] The exhibit of progress made by a race in 25 years of freedom against 250 years of slavery would have been the greatest tribute to the greatness and progressiveness of American institutions, which could have been sh

own the world. - [Narrator] The preface was written in English, French and German. - She was standing in front of the Haitian pavilion every single day handing out the pamphlet with the idea that people would go from this fair all over the world and say, "What the heck is going on in the United States?" - It was simply savvy strategy and Ida was a savvy woman. - [Narrator] Ida B. Wells's battles at the World's Fair were just getting started. But if there was one thing she had shown in her 31 yea

rs before coming to Chicago, she never went down without a fight. (music dies down) (somber music) (somber music) (birds chirping) - Ida Bell Wells was born into slavery six months before emancipation in Holly Springs, Mississippi to James and Lizzie Wells. - James was actually the product of the slave owner going into slave quarters. So allegedly he did receive better treatment than other slaves. Lizzie was one of 10 children, all of them were parceled out and sold to different places and she d

idn't see her siblings after that happened. - [Narrator] When freedom came, Ida and her parents remained on the estate of their former enslaver and James continued to work there but now he was paid for his labor. - It was extreme ambition during this period. African-Americans were really committed to moving into the mainstream of American life as quickly as possible with as many skills as they could acquire. - [Narrator] James Wells joined the Board of Trustees of the newly founded Rust College.

Ida's mother attended school alongside her eight children until she could read. - James had friends of his come over to the house and they would read the newspaper. They asked Ida to read the newspaper to them because a lot of people were not literate. (woman reading in background) - [Daphene] Ida B. Wells doesn't come out of nowhere. - She had parents who were very excited about their newfound freedom and she observed her father especially his political activism. - [Actor] I heard the words Ku

Klux Klan long before I knew what they meant. I knew dimly that it meant something fearful by the anxious way my mother walked the floor at night when my father was out to a political meeting. (dramatic music) - [Narrator] Four years after emancipation her father got his first opportunity to vote. Suddenly, James Wells found himself at odds with his now employer. - He challenged even his employer who demanded that James Wells vote on the Democratic ticket and James Wells refused and then he fou

nd that his former master had locked him out of the shop where he was working and James Wells didn't argue with him. He just went to town, bought a new set of tools and opened up a new trade as a carpenter. (knocking sound) - There was optimism and hope as far as every citizen is entitled to, life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. And Ida took that seriously. - [Narrator] But Ida's world would be turned upside down when she was 16 years old. It was the summer she left home to visit her gra

ndmother's farm. - There was an epidemic of yellow fever that went throughout the country particularly in the South. - She knew that people had fled Holly Springs and assumed that her parents and siblings were among those people. But then one day some people came to her grandmother's farm and handed her a note saying that both of her parents had died. Ida was 16 years old at the time and against her grandmother and several other people's advice she decided to get on a train and go back to Holly

Springs. - [Narrator] She returned to find that her youngest brother had also died. Well-meaning charity workers were already there and busy making plans. - There was talk of how different people were gonna take different responsibility for Ida's siblings. And was like, "No, we're not dividing the family. We don't do that." - [Michelle] She had grown up hearing stories from her mother about being separated and sold from her family. - So there was supposedly a shotgun on the mantle and she got th

e shotgun and was like, "Look, I'm gonna take care of family." Like oh, why didn't you say so? (dramatic music) (instrumental music) - [Narrator] 16-year-old Ida found work as a teacher and took on the role of breadwinner with the help of her grandmother. - [Actor] After teaching a country school all week, I came home Friday afternoon six miles out from town and spent the time from then until Monday morning washing clothes, cooking food and preparing things so they could do without me until the

end of the next week. (train whistling) - [Narrator] Ida's Aunt Fannie saw the family was struggling and eventually invited them to live with her. They hopped on a train bound for the big city. (upbeat music) - She moves to Memphis and Memphis is the place to be. It's a metropolitan city. It is a transportation center even in the 1800s for the entire world. She saw it as exciting as a young woman. We shouldn't be surprised by this, she was a shopper. She liked to look nice. She often talks about

her expenses exceeding her income in part because she was supporting siblings. But the other part too is that Ida was a clothes horse. She enjoyed shopping downtown. (dramatic music) - [Narrator] Although Ida had hoped to secure a teaching post in Memphis, she'd settled at a small school in Woodstock, Tennessee, a short train ride away. (train roaring) But a fateful ride along the Chesapeake rail line would carry her on a much different path. Just weeks after her 21st birthday, Ida boarded the

morning train to Woodstock, a first-class ticket in hand. She was dressed in white gloves and a corset, carrying a parasol. - She was petite. She was well under five feet and very well-dressed, very obviously very well-spoken. - During Reconstruction blacks had their rights. So she had ridden on that car several times over the past couple of years and was entitled to do it. - [Narrator] She chose a seat toward the back of the first-class rail car. But minutes later, the trains conductor brusquel

y informed her that she was seated in the ladies car, a fact Ida was well aware. The conductor insisted she move to the smoking car, a lower-class carriage where men could often be found cussing and gambling - [Actor] As I was in the ladies' car, I proposed to stay. He tried to drag me out of the seat but the moment he caught hold of my arm I fastened my teeth to the back of his hand. - It took three men to forcibly remove her from the rail car in which she put up a fight literal fight. When she

was removed from the car the passengers cheered. You talk about something that infuriates someone, that absolutely infuriated her. - [Narrator] Ida struck back by filing suit against the railroad company. - She sued the Chesapeake Railroad and won and was awarded $500. - [Narrator] The judge found the railroad company had violated the law by forcing Wells to ride in a car that was separate but unequal. But the lower court's decision would not stand. - The Tennessee Supreme Court essentially att

acked her personally to say that she was just being disruptive, that she wasn't a lady as she pretended to be. - [Actor] I have firmly believed all along that the law was on our side and would, when we appeal to it, give us justice. I feel shorn belief and utterly discouraged, and just now, if it were possible would gather my race in my arms and fly away with them. - When we think about the modern Civil Rights Movement and Rosa Parks, she had the NAACP behind her. In 1884 it's just Ida B. Wells

and her attorney. (upbeat music) - [Narrator] Ida B. Wells was starting to make a name for herself. She took a teaching job in Memphis and joined a Lyceum founded by black teachers. - It was a community of sort of thinkers and artists and she actually took elocution classes which is speaking classes and in her diary she writes about how she was kind of like trying to scrape up the money to pay for her next lesson and, so you wonder like what in the world was she preparing herself for? But she wa

s honing her skills. - [Narrator] Each program ended with a reading from The Evening Star, a gossip filled newspaper, which Ida called a spicy journal. She was shocked when asked to start writing for it. (music dies down) As Ida. B Wells first put pen to paper, she found writing to be nothing short of a revelation. - She felt like she could sort of explore more of who she was and express who she was through writing more than she ever could in teaching. - [Actor] I wrote in a plain common-sense w

ay on the things which concerned our people. Knowing that their education was limited, I never used a word of two syllables where one would serve the purpose. I signed these articles, Iola. - When Ida B. Wells first starts writing she was writing about the things that one would expect a woman who's writing for a church publication to write for. But that started to change pretty early on. As a schoolteacher, Ida starts to document the segregation in the schools and how the black schools were not

getting the same resources and the educational inequities. - She wrote an article in 1889 about the Memphis school system which is unfortunate because the article could be literally printed today and you wouldn't know the difference. - [Narrator] She railed against her fellow educators. - [Actor] Some of these teachers had little to recommend them save an illicit relationship with members of the school board. - You have to think about the type of person who will start writing editorials and news

articles about their own employer but that's what she was doing. - She did not get fired immediately. When the next school year came up, they didn't renew her contract. (women humming) - [Narrator] While teaching had served a practical purpose, writing was now Ida's true passion. She bought a partnership in the most radical black newspaper in Memphis, the Free Speech and Headlight and became its editor. (women humming) The paper's circulation tripled. - What's unique about that moment is not on

ly is she African-American at this time but she's also a woman and being a woman in Victorian America where she is essentially playing the role of what was then considered what men do. - [Narrator] Ida B. Wells was ascending at a precarious moment. As she and other newly emancipated African-Americans made waves, white supremacist fervor flooded the South. - We kind of gloss over this period as if once the South is beaten in the Civil War that all of a sudden white southerners just acquiesce to t

he people whom they had enslaved now coming into power, serving in political office. That is not the case. Black freedom, black political power was always contested and so all across the South we saw black men, women and children being lynched. It wasn't a secret. It wasn't considered shameful. Newspapers would advertise that a lynching was going to occur to give these crowds a chance to come and watch. (music dies down) (dramatic music) - [Narrator] One such murder would change the course of Id

a's life. She was spending the week in Natchez, Mississippi on newspaper business when word came that three men had been lynched in Memphis. Calvin McDowell, Will Stewart and Thomas Moss. Moss was like a brother to Ida. - Thomas Moss and Moss's wife were essentially her best friends here in Memphis. - She was so close to Thomas Moss, Tommy. She was godmother to his child. - [Actor] Everybody in town knew and loved Tommy, an exemplary young man. He and his wife Betty were the best friends I had i

n town. - [Narrator] Three years before their murders, Moss and his friends had opened a store called the People's Grocery. - The People's Grocery was located in South Memphis in an area that at the time was called the Curve. - The Curve was a predominantly black community and so you have these three black men that decide they're going to open up a grocery store in their own community. - [Narrator] But their new grocery put them in direct competition with William Barrett, a white store owner mak

ing money off the black community. - William Barrett was infuriated like how can these people take business away from him? - [Narrator] What started as an innocent game of marbles outside the People's Grocery grew heated. - And the interesting part is this was an integrated game of marbles with white children, white boys and black boys. There was a fight and eventually adults joined into the skirmish. (people yelling) - [Narrator] The white store owner was injured. He convinced the County sherif

f to deputize him and gathered a posse. - [Daphene] They came late at night, this group of white men (fire cracking) the People's Grocery owners, including Thomas Moss. They knew that they were coming. They had gotten word. - So they were prepared for this and they armed themselves and they were in the store when they got there. And there was a fight. - [Narrator] Several white deputies were wounded. - The headlines talk about rounding up every Negro that was involved. - [Narrator] Ida's friend

Thomas Moss was arrested with Will Stewart and Calvin McDowell and held at the Shelby County Jail. - But then a lynch mob decided that they were going to exact their own justice. And so they went to the jail and took them to a sort of a rail yard north of there and killed them. (dramatic music) Shot them, beat them, just lynched them. (dramatic music) - I do think that we should take a second and really explicate what that word means. Lynching was not simply tying a rope around someone's neck an

d hanging them though that is brutal and inhumane enough. Lynching was designed directly to send a message to the larger black population. In the South, in many places black people were in the majority. So how does a white minority that has lost power and wants to gain that power back do that when they are in the minority, it was through terrorism. - [Narrator] Lynching had become a common and accepted punishment for black men who had allegedly raped white women. But now Ida B. Wells who'd grown

accustomed to the brutality of Southern justice began to wonder. - [Actor] Like many another person who had read of lynching in the South, I had accepted the idea meant to be conveyed, that although lynching was irregular and contrary to law and order, unreasoning anger over the terrible crime of rape led to the lynching; that perhaps the brute deserved death anyhow and the mob was justified in taking his life. - After Thomas Moss, who really was lynched because he was competing with a white bu

siness owner something clicks in Ida, a vengeful spirit I think. And she decides that she's going to focus on the lie of lynching really for the rest of her career. - [Narrator] Ida set out in search of the truth. Notebook in hand, she traveled across the South interviewing eyewitnesses. - There was no grasp of exactly how many black people were being lynched. She would find where lynches were occurring by looking through white newspapers. And she began to keep basically spreadsheets. - [Narrato

r] Of the 728 murders she investigated, Wells found that only a third of the victims had actually been accused of crimes. She sat down to pen a blistering editorial - [Actor] Eight Negroes lynched since the last issue of Free Speech. Three were charged with killing white men and five with raping white women. Nobody in this section believes the old thread-bare lie that Negro men assault white women. - Her writing was used to create a sense of outrage and every word was chosen for that manner. Her

writing had this simmering rage. She was writing not just to inform, but to shame. - [Actor] If Southern white men are not careful, they will overreach themselves and a conclusion will be reached which will be very damaging to the moral reputation of their women. - [Narrator] Within days, Edward Ward Carmack, Editor of the Memphis Commercial Appeal reprinted Ida's editorial. - And she got the attention of the white community and certainly the white press. - [Narrator] Unaware that the author of

the editorial was a woman, Carmack called on the men of Memphis to avenge the honor of Southern ladies quote, "The black wretch who had written that foul lie should be tied to a stake at the corner of Main and Madison streets, a pair of tailor's shears used on him and he should then be burned at a stake. - The white community of Memphis was outraged. - [Narrator] A mob of angry whites converged on the offices of the Free Speech on Beale Street. Finding the newspaper deserted, they demolished th

e presses and destroyed the offices. But by then, Ida B. Wells had already fled Memphis. (music dies down) (light music) By the time Ida arrived in Chicago for the World's Fair, she has been traveling more than a year. - She had lost everything at age 30, not only her physical property and her printing press but also her friends which is no small thing. - [Actor] Having lost my paper, had a price put on my life and been made an exile from home for hinting at the truth, I felt that I owed it to m

yself and to my race to tell the whole truth now that I was where I could do so freely. - [Narrator] Ida B. Wells circulated 10,000 copies of "The Reason Why the Colored American is not in the World's Colombian Exposition." Her plea for inclusion was largely ignored. Though the fair's organizers made one token concession. August 25th was designated Colored American Day. Frederick Douglass arranged the program but Ida refused to even attend. - [Actor] We resented this sop to our pride in this bel

ated way, and we thought Mr. Douglass ought not to have accepted. I was among those who differed with our grand old man. - [Narrator] But Ida had another mission at the World's Fair. With the eyes of the world on Chicago, she would use the international stage to expose the terror of lynching. - She was probably more looking at it as an amazing opportunity to get the message out and hit thousands of people all at the same time from all over the world. - [Narrator] Her message was growing more mil

itant. Sharpened through her internationally published works, Southern Horrors and A Red Record. She pulled no punches in describing how armed blacks had beaten back lynch mobs. - [Actor] The lesson this teaches and which every Afro-American should ponder well is that a Winchester rifle should have a place of honor in every black home and it should be used for that protection which the law refuses to give. - I would call Ida B. Wells someone who was very comfortable hanging out in the left, whic

h was not very comfortable for people who were sort of straddling the middle or to the right. - [Narrator] At the close of the World's Fair, Ida B. Wells set out to find allies for her anti-lynching campaign. For a year she crossed the globe. - Her motivating factor was to inform the world about how this country was treating its own citizens. (dramatic music) - If you're gonna go to the root of the problem you've got to find support among the whites so she was very good at building allies and ve

ry strategic. (upbeat music) - [Narrator] By the time Ida returned to Chicago in 1895, she had been a refugee from the South for three years. Despite her many successes, she was financially strained and weary in need of an anchor. She found just that in Ferdinand Barnett. - He was 10 years older than Ida when they got married so that would have made him 43. - Ferdinand was a widower. He liked strong black women. He met Ida and he was like, "Yeah, we're gonna need to get married." (laughs) - His

first contact with Ida B. Wells is because she needs a lawyer. Frederick Douglass recommends Ferdinand Barnett. - [Narrator] Barnett was the third African-American lawyer admitted to the Illinois Bar and the owner of Chicago's first black newspaper, The Conservator. Their wedding was announced in black newspapers nationwide and in a highly unusual move, in The New York Times. - This was the same newspaper that a few years earlier had called Ida, a slanderous and nasty-minded Mulattress because o

f her writing about lynchings. And now her wedding announcement occurs in that very same paper, The New York Times, the paper of record. - [Narrator] Wells took the hyphenated name, Ida B. Wells-Barnett. And she also took over Ferdinand's newspaper. - [Actor] Having always been busy at some work of my own, I decided to continue work as a journalist for this was my first and might be said, my only love. - [Narrator] The Conservator's circulation of about a thousand readers represented a healthy c

hunk of Chicago's roughly 6,000 African-Americans. But the city's black population was growing. - Ida B. Wells and two dozen more arrive in Chicago in the 1890s and thus put themselves in a position to be the institution builders of Black Chicago. - [Narrator] Ida and Ferdinand lived alongside most of the city's African-Americans in a narrow strip of South side land known as the Black Belt. Its boundaries were often enforced by violence. - [Charles] If you go West of State Street, you're in the

stockyards community, a largely Irish community and you're likely to get beaten or killed. You're not gonna move too far East because middle-class whites don't want you there and they certainly don't want you on the lakefront. So, it's about four blocks wide but it keeps moving southward. This will be the hub of the African-American community. And what's important here is that it is entirely self sufficient. African-Americans find employment within their own community. African-Americans build bu

sinesses, newspapers, a political leadership. African-Americans are virtually institutionally complete within these southward migrating communities which came to be called Black Metropolis. - [Narrator] Ida took delight in the community's cultural riches. There were churches, Olivet Baptist, Bethel AME and Quinn Chapel AME. And there were black social organizations. Ida B. Wells-Barnett took her place among the Cream of the 400, a social registry of Chicago's black elite. - [Charles] Ida B. Well

s and Ferdinand Barnett were the political power couple, certainly in the African-American community in Chicago. - [Narrator] The couple gave birth to their first child, Charles in 1896. Ferdinand hired a nurse so Ida could return to the lecture circuit with their newborn baby. - Ferdinand was attracted to the fact that she was out there doing things and he provided the support for her to continue doing that. - [Actor] I honestly believe that I am the only woman in the United States whoever trav

eled throughout the country with a nursing baby to make political speeches. - [Narrator] The following year Ida gave birth to Herman, then Ida Jr and finally Alfreda in quick succession. - This is a woman who was quite aware of the sacrifices she was making as a mother and the sacrifices her children had to make because she was often on the road. - [Narrator] While Ida B. Wells-Barnett continued to shine a light on injustice through journalism, she also started looking to politics as an agent fo

r change. In this new arena, she faced the same obstacle as every other American woman, she could not vote. So instead, women like Wells made their voices heard through women's clubs. - These were enormously popular and also beginning to be very influential and powerful. They were really the means by which women could have some influence in society. - [Narrator] Ida helped found the League of Colored Women. Her supporters even created an Ida B. Wells Club. - The women's clubs were an opportunity

for women to pursue some self-education. And then they began to move from there into improving education for children, beginning kindergartens, beginning libraries and ultimately to lobby government about getting the right to vote. - [Narrator] As Ida B. Wells-Barnett found opportunities in Chicago's civic life, she now started urging Southern blacks to flee North as she had. - Literally she'd tell people in the South like, Look, come North. It's not perfect. I'm telling you it's not perfect bu

t it's way better than what you're experiencing. And so people would come. - [Narrator] Because the new migrants had only one neighborhood to choose, the Black Belt was swelling. The beating heart of the Black Belt was now a strip of South State Street known as The Stroll. This was where the action took place. - There were juke joints, restaurants, hidden gambling dens, and people constantly walking or promenading from about 2700 South down to about 3500 South. And so people could prominently sh

ow off their clothes, their gait, you didn't walk you strutted. (jazz music) - [Narrator] But cracks were forming in the Black Belt. As new migrants met up against the forces of segregation, housing became scarce and crowded. The Barnetts refused to be contained. They moved to a new home at 3234 Rhodes Avenue, making them one of the first black families to move East of State Street. Ida B. Wells was known to keep a gun in the house for protection. - It's a political statement that they're gonna

live anywhere they can. People like Ida B. Wells were committed to the idea that segregation in any form was a insult to African-Americans. - [Narrator] The Southern migrants still stuck in the Black Belt were often viewed as outsiders in their own community. Hordes of "ignorant and dissolute," said one white reformer to describe the Southern Blacks who quote, "lowered the standard of the colored population in our midst." To distance themselves from such insult, longtime Black Chicagoans formed

a society limited to those who could prove their families had lived in the city at least 30 years. They called themselves the Old Settlers Club. - [Charles] Many of the old settlers are successful largely because of relations they've established with wealthy whites. These African-Americans find the new African-Americans as a threat to their leadership. They're not as polished, they're not as mannered. As somebody once told me, the problem is they didn't work for white people. - [Narrator] Ida B.

Wells would make it clear which side of this social divide she stood on in 1906. She had been elected to organize a charity ball for the Frederick Douglass Center built in memory of her old friend who had passed. The previous year's gala had been held at the prestigious Masonic Temple downtown, but Ida instead set her sights on the boisterous Stroll and a rich South side hustler named Robert T. Motts. - Now, Robert T. Motts was a gambler, a fairly shady person, but Robert Motts went to Paris, d

iscovered Parisian entertainment, decided that his community needed something like that. A place where African-Americans could put on plays, write comedies, enjoy African-American music. - [Narrator] Motts already had the location, a disreputable saloon in the heart of the Stroll. - Robert T. Motts, however he gained his money, was rich. And so he had the money to invest in something that he could be proud of. - [Narrator] Motts Pekin Theater was his chance to turn over a new leaf. When he gave

Ida B. Wells a tour, she saw the makings of a first class establishment. - The place was beautiful. She thought it provided class because it moved him away from selling booze. She liked the idea that it provided an opportunity to see African-American artistic excellence. - [Actor] I felt that the race owed Mr. Motts a debt of gratitude for giving us a theater in which we could sit anywhere we chose without any restrictions. - [Narrator] When Ida announced her event will be held at the Pekin, man

y in black high society were outraged. Citing Motts' reputation, the Chicago Daily News refused to even print the announcement. But the loudest assault came from the neighborhood churches - African-American ministers, spearheaded by Archibald Carey Sr. campaigned against holding an event for the African-American elite in a place like the new Pekin Theater. He gave sermons about it. Not only at his own church, he gave sermons at other churches. Ida B. Wells hated hypocrisy. She had been a member

of Bethel AME and she remembers when a former pastor had been guilty of inappropriate relations with members of his congregation and had been expelled only to be brought back with the support of people like Archibald Carey. - [Narrator] Ida moved ahead with her charity ball and despite threats of a boycott, it raised $500. - [Charles] It was eminently successful. It cemented a friendship between Robert T. Motts and Ida B. Wells until his death. - The Pekin was the first black-owned theater in Ch

icago. It would give the city some of its first tastes of ragtime making way for other jazz clubs on the Stroll where the likes of Louis Armstrong and Cab Calloway played. And Ida B. Wells had supported it despite the objections of African-American leaders. - She challenged the black elite. She would challenge the black political organization. She challenged white leadership but, she was willing to step on toes because she had a larger purpose. - [Narrator] The black migration from the South tha

t exposed fault lines in Chicago was also ratcheting up tensions across America. In 1908 the nation saw more than 80 lynchings in every corner of the country. - It happens in the Northeast. We hear a lot less about lynchings but of course wherever black people go, lynching follows as a tool of social control. - [Narrator] A lynching in Springfield, Illinois that summer would once again change the course of Ida B. Wells's career. (dramatic music) In Abraham Lincoln's hometown, two black men were

jailed. One accused of murdering a white man, the other falsely charged with the rape of a white woman. A lynch mob of roughly 5,000 whites assembled. They stormed the East side (people yelling) of the city where blacks lived lynching innocent men and burning the neighborhood to cinders. (dramatic music) (fire cracking) At least seven people were killed before the Illinois Guard brought the riot under control. - [Actor] I had such a feeling of impotency through the whole matter which seemed to b

e becoming as bad in Illinois as it had hitherto been in Georgia. - [Narrator] The following Sunday, Wells was hosting her weekly Bible study for young men when the conversation turned to the horrific events in Springfield. - The young people she was meeting with were so appalled by the violence that took place. The nature of those meetings goes from being more about their faith and more and more about what they can do about racial oppression. - [Narrator] They continue to meet every Sunday call

ing themselves the Negro Fellowship League and the group turned its attention to the needs of black men who had come North in search of opportunity only to lose their way on the Stroll. - The Stroll could have a negative effect on the life of a young male migrant because beyond the cigar shop along State Street, beyond the outer doors in the back was a place where you could gamble. - [Narrator] Ida's friend, Jane Addams had been concerned with the plight of immigrant women and children and she h

ad created Hull House to serve them. But there was nowhere for young African-American men to turn for help. They weren't welcome at institutions like the YMCA. - [Actor] All other races in the city are welcomed into settlements. YMCAs, YWCAs, gymnasiums and every other movement for uplift if only their skins are white. Only one social center welcomes the Negro and that is the saloon. - Being from the South she knew what kind of conditions people were coming from. I think she felt like she could

relate to them on a personal level. Her dream was to create sort of the black Hull House if you wanna call it that. - [Narrator] Ida B. Wells unexpectedly found a sponsor for her vision at a Palmer House luncheon. Jessie Lawson was the wife of the wealthy editor of the Chicago Daily News. - The Lawsons who were donors to the YMCA were unaware that it was not serving blacks in Chicago. - [Narrator] Ida told Jessie Lawson about her dreams for the Negro Fellowship League and they set out to find a

location. - That location in her mind had to be in the midst of where the greatest need lay. And that was along State Street at the North end of the Stroll. - [Narrator] Ida B. Wells-Barnett opened the Negro Fellowship League on a warm Sunday with a program for the neighborhood. As the room filled, they left the back door open to let in the breeze. (people chattering) But before long, the program was interrupted by the boisterous sounds of a group of drunken men outside shooting dice with a pail

of beer. - [Man] Put the money in the hat. (men exclaim) - [Narrator] Rather than call the police, Wells set out to invite them to the next Sunday meeting. - And so when she goes into the alley to talk to those men who are drinking and playing dice, she doesn't have any airs about her. - [Narrator] Wells recalled their surprise when she extended her white-gloved hand to shake on their promise to return. - [Actor] They all said they didn't want to dirty my white gloves by shaking hands but reite

rated that they would go away and also repeated their promise to come next Sunday. - There were black people who were from "Upper class" who wouldn't even come visit the center because it was in a location that they didn't feel comfortable visiting. My great-grandparents were unique. They were both educated but at the same time they were willing to go into the hood. (chuckles) - [Narrator] Ida had built a beacon on the Stroll, a place where men could find jobs, housing, legal help and moral upli

ftment. - I think she felt a tremendous responsibility. She's telling black folks leave the South and yet she's seeing people come and they are suffering and no one is looking out for them not even other black Chicagoans. (dramatic music) - [Narrator] But Ida B. Wells would feel the impact of that awful Springfield riot in another way. In the riots wake Ida and other activists received an invitation from Oswald Garrison Villard, grandson of the abolitionist William Lloyd Garrison. His letter, kn

own as "The Call" proposed a conference to discuss present evils. (train whistling) The following spring, luminaries like W.E.B. Du Bois and Jane Addams gathered in New York. On the first day of the conference, Ida B. Wells-Barnett delivered a forceful speech on her 20 years of lynching research. - This is what Ida B. Wells was doing around the issue of lynching. She takes lynching from a fringe issue that no one really black or white will touch and she turns it into a central issue. - [Narrator

] At the close of the conference, the activists agreed to start a new organization. It would become known as the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. Although Ida was initially chosen to be on the NAACP's founding committee, at the last minute Du Bois substituted her name. - My guess is that people like W.E.B. Du Bois were sexist. And I think we have to call that. He did not promote easily African-American female leadership. Secondly, the leadership of the NAACP from the b

eginning largely addressed to the African-American middle-class and to the African-American upper middle class. - [Narrator] But Ida B. Wells campaigns had become increasingly geared toward the poorest of the poor. And despite her impassioned speech about lynching, the NAACP was not ready to confront the crisis she'd dedicated her career to. - The NAACP, which Ida helped co-found even though she doesn't often get the name recognition and credit for that didn't want to touch that issue. - It was

something about the ideas that Ida had about for example, lynching having its base in sexual relations. It was their thought that this was a no-no. This in fact was something blacks like Du Bois wouldn't approach because he knew that white people would be offended by this discussion. - [Narrator] Ida B. Wells, now 50 years removed from slavery still did not have the power to vote. But she had joined Illinois women in a partial victory. - In June of 1913, women in Illinois can vote in the preside

ntial election and they can vote in local municipal elections but they cannot vote for example for governor or for Senator. - [Narrator] Encouraged, Ida B. Wells took up the suffrage cause with new fervor. Noting that white suffragists were working like beavers, she established the Alpha Suffrage Club. Their slogan, race interest first, last and all the time. The club mobilized black women in the Black Belt second ward and eventually helped elect Chicago's first black alderman. - Those were ordi

nary women, not the high-faluting black women of Chicago. Ordinary women were told they had worth and could make a change in society. - [Narrator] That spring, Ida B. Wells set her sights on Washington, DC. On the day before Woodrow Wilson's inauguration, she boarded a train bound for the National Suffrage Parade. - Wells travels with the Illinois delegation. She gets to Washington, DC. There are state delegations from all over the United States and Illinois is very large. They've got drum major

s. - [Narrator] Wells and 250,000 women approached Pennsylvania Avenue. But Alice Paul, the lead parade planner had a last minute concern. Southern white women wouldn't march if they had to do so alongside black women. Planners suddenly asked that the black delegates march separately in the back. Ida B. Wells-Barnett was struck by the news. - So Wells says, "Of course, I'm not going to do that. I came here with my delegation from Illinois. I intend to march with my delegation." And they march an

yway all together and so the march is integrated. (jazz music) And it's just classic Wells. I mean she stands for her principles, no matter what. (jazz music) - [Narrator] Though her Negro Fellowship League had now been serving men on The Stroll for 20 years, Ida B. Wells was struggling to keep it afloat. Her wealthy friends admired her dedication but wouldn't venture to The Stroll and work among the uneducated and unemployed black men. - I don't know if she originally thought she would be doing

this work by herself. I think she expected and was hoping for other people to be as outraged as she was and to get in the trenches and fight. - [Narrator] And she had never received the kind of wealthy patronage Jane Addams secured for Hull House. By the winter of 1920, the Negro Fellowship League's rent was in arrears and Ida B. Wells was finally forced to close its doors. - It is important that when we think about the strength of this black woman, and we think about the strength of black wome

n, that we never forget that it always comes with a cost. And it certainly, it took a toll on her. It took a toll on her physically. - [Narrator] When Ida B. Wells-Barnett was 68 years old she attended a book reading with her oldest daughter. The subject was a book by Carter G. Woodson, the man who created Black History Month. But Ida was dismayed to discover that her anti-lynching efforts weren't even mentioned. - She met a young woman who had heard her name but didn't know what she did. That w

as stunning for her that she herself was not known by a new generation. - [Narrator] So she sat down to put her story on paper. In the first pages of her autobiography, Ida B. Wells explained: - [Actor] The history of this entire period which reflected glory on the race should be known. Yet most of it is buried in oblivion and so, because our youth are entitled to the facts of race history, which only the participants can give I am thus led to set forth the facts. - [Michelle] I guess it was her

story but it's also the history of our country. - [Narrator] Ida B. Wells' unfinished autobiography ended mid-sentence. A fitting reflection perhaps of a woman who knew there's still more work to be done. In March of 1931, Ida B. Wells-Barnett awoke with a worrisome fever. She died a few days later. She is buried next to Ferdinand Barnett, her partner for more than 30 years. - Ida B. Wells and Ferdinand Barnett, crusaders for justice. (somber music) - [Michelle] I am a native Chicagoan and ther

e was an Ida B. Wells Homes on the South side of Chicago. Most people had heard the name but it got to a point where it was just a disconnect between who Ida B. Wells as a woman was and the work that she did and what people associated with her name. - [Narrator] In February of 2019, Ida B. Wells Drive became Chicago's first street named for an African-American woman. The next year, Wells was posthumously honored with a Pulitzer Prize. New York Times writer, Nikole Hannah-Jones won her Pulitzer P

rize the same day. - When I found out that I had won the Pulitzer on the same day as my spiritual godmother, Ida B. Wells, a woman who did not receive that type of recognition in her life and never would have, I cried like a baby. - No justice no peace - Recently, a multitude of young activists and justice seekers are taking up the work of Ida B. Wells. - Who do you serve! Who do you protect! Who do you serve! Who do you protect! - [Narrator] For older historians, the reason why is simple. - [Cr

owd] Black Lives Matter! - Black Lives Matter. Black Lives Matter is addressing the same issues that Ida B. Wells took up in the 1880s and 90s. (crowd chattering) Moreover, Black Lives Matter has a considerable component of black female leadership. (people clapping) - I need for these racist systems to be dismantled. - What we need is equity, what we need is recovery. - No peace! - [Charles] They're taking to the streets. - Police! - [Charles] They're writing essays, they're organizing cadres. -

Black Lives Matter! Women are faith and we believe in fighting. - [Charles] They are addressing systemic violence more broadly than simply the issue of police brutality. - I want jobs and resources in Black and Brown communities on the South and West sides of Chicago. (people clapping and cheering) - The violence is caused by economic disparity, it's caused by the increasing gap between the rich and the poor and that is exemplified by this city. (people clapping and cheering) - [Charles] This i

s Ida B. Wells. (music dies down) - [Narrator] In the last and unfinished chapter of her autobiography, Ida B. Wells offered words of wisdom to future generations writing: - [Actor] Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty. - Ida B. Wells was clearly outstanding and unique. There's no doubt about that. But I think what she would say is use your talent to the best of your ability, to see her life as an example of what it takes to create change and the price, but not to glorify her or make her ou

t of reach of the actions of ordinary people. (humming)