The Pen Mightier than the Sword

Ida B. Wells fought for justice her entire adult life despite seemingly insurmountable odds. Wells was born in Mississippi in 1862, before the emancipation of the United States' enslaved population. She would live until 1931.

Ida B. Wells


What drove Wells into activism was an incident on a train, where she was forcibly thrown off for not complying with southern racial norms of riding a train. Wells sued the railroad company and originally won $500 before the result was overturned.

Thus began her career as a speaker for the subordinated, a fighter for the less fortunate, and a deacon of the downtrodden. She began to write about the inconsistencies that she saw between humanity and the realities of the United States South. She exposed police brutality. When blacks in Memphis, Tennessee were threatened by whites, "Iola" (Wells' pen name) wrote that blacks should move west. They did, and they avoided the violence that would have otherwise beset them.

Ida B. Wells became one of the most prominent writers in the black community at the time. She famously wrote against a lynching that had claimed the life of her friend, an up-and-coming store owner. This case had sparked the tensions in Memphis that led to Wells issuing a decree to leave the violently racist city. Wells not only wrote for her people, but, just as Harry T. Moore would do (see Distinguished Gentleman), she collected affidavits when the United States' courts couldn't see to it that justice would prevail.

She founded the first anti-lynching organization in the world in London. She attempted to gain European sympathy for her people's plight States-side. This organization was a result of the many supposed rapes that she had covered as an investigative journalist. Black men were convicted of raping white women, despite the utterly obvious truth. Wells was determined to expose the truth for all the world to see.

Wells was not always respected amongst her male colleagues, because she was a woman. She was forced to fight, not only racism, but also sexism. She championed the battle for all women's equality, black and white. She married a lawyer named Ferdinand Barnett, which led to criticism amongst her fellow feminists. Her friend Susan B. Anthony ridiculed her for marrying.

Ida B. Wells stuck her nose places where it was not welcomed. She challenged the thinking of everyone around her. She obviously defied white supremacy and the United States' patriarchal system. But she also challenged the traditional role of women in the fight for racial equality, simply by standing up for her convictions. She challenged the role of a married woman in the fight for female equality. This latter dispute would spark the women's liberation movement of the 1960s.

Wells proves the old adage, the pen is mightier than the sword. Her writings awoke the courage of two groups of people against the violent reactionary status quo and made this country a better place to live.