Ida B. Wells was born into slavery in Holly Springs, Mississippi. She was educated at Rust University, a high school and industrial school in Holly Springs. After her parents and other family members died in a yellow-fever epidemic, Wells got a teaching job at a nearby country school. In 1884 Wells moved to Memphis, Tennessee, where she taught in the city’s African American schools. She later began writing newspaper articles that criticized the poor quality of schools for African American children. Wells later became part owner of the Memphis Free Speech, an African American newspaper. After three of her friends were killed by a lynch mob in 1892, Wells began an investigative campaign against lynching. Her newspaper reports stirred up so much controversy that her offices were destroyed. Knowing that she could not continue to pursue her career in Memphis, she moved to New York. Wells began an antilynching crusade, first through the newspapers and then as a speaker in northern cities. In 1895 she moved to Chicago and married Ferdinand Barnett, a lawyer and newspaper editor. Later, she published A Red Record, the first detailed study of lynching. Wells-Barnett continued her own work for justice until her death in Chicago in 1931.
