Ida B. Wells
Ida Bell Wells-Barnett (July 16, 1862 – March 25, 1931), more commonly known as Ida B. Wells, was an African-American investigative journalist, educator, and an early leader in the Civil Rights Movement. She was one of the founders of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP).[1] She arguably became the most famous black woman in America, during a life that was centered on combating prejudice and violence. Wells was born into slavery in Holly Springs, Mississippi. Freed by the Emancipation Proclamation during the American Civil War, she lost both her parents and a sibling in the 1878 yellow fever epidemic, when she was 16 years old. She went to work and kept the rest of the family intact with the help of her grandmother. She moved with some of her siblings to Memphis, Tennessee, where she found better pay as a teacher. Soon she co-owned a newspaper, the Memphis Free Speech and Headlight. In the 1890s, Wells documented lynching in the United States.