Ida B. Wells-Barnett was an African-American woman who lived in the Progressive Era. She was a fearless anti-lynching crusader, suffragist, journalist, and speaker. She was born in Mississippi in 1862 and died in Illinois in 1931, she was 69 years old. She had been a slave before the Civil War and after the war Ida, her mother (a famous cook), her father (a skilled carpenter), and her six other siblings lived as freed African-Americans. When Ida was 14 her parents and her youngest sibling died of yellow fever. After helping support her younger siblings she went on to school at Rust College while teaching at a local school. After she graduated Ida went to Memphis to live with her aunt and younger sisters. Memphis is where she began her fight against racial and gender justice.
Ida B. Wells-Barnett was on a train one day, sitting in a seat comfortably. There was a white man being forced to stand because there where no more seats left on the train car. The conductor noticed this and walked over to Ida, asking her to move to the forward car which was designated for smokers and colored people. Even though the 1875 Civil Rights Act banned discrimination on the basis of race, creed, or color, in theaters, hotels, transportation and other accommodations, several railroad companies defied this congressional mandate and racially segregated its passengers. When the conductor asked her to move she simply said no, that is a smoking car and she was in the lady’s car. With this defiance the conductor attempted to remove her physically from the train car by dragging her, but when he grabbed her arm she bit his hand, hard. He went to get some more men to help him drag her out of her seat, she was no match for them and they eventually moved her. She proceeded to sue the railroad and won! From there on Ida B. Wells-Barnett was fighting for the equal rights she deserved.
The Limits of Progressivism: Race 