Ida B. Wells receives Pulitzer Prize citation

 Compiled by Susanne Jackson, with updates from May 4, 2020 Chicago Tribune article by Morgan Greene

“The way to right wrongs is to turn the light of truth upon them.” ~ Ida B. Wells-Barnett

The Pulitzer Prize Board awarded the posthumous special citation for Wells’ “outstanding and courageous reporting on the horrific and vicious violence against African Americans during the era of lynching.” The honor, announced Monday, by the board of the Pulitzer Prizes, is a testament to Wells’ long-standing work and contributions to the country,” said Michelle Duster, the great-granddaughter of Wells. As a journalist, Wells, also known by Wells-Barnett, reported on the racist lynchings of black men, sorting through statistics and uncovering fabrications.

Ida B. Wells-Barnett did not mince words. Her forthright, courageous expressions were incited by the flames of racism touching her life, the lives of her friends, family and the entire Black community in Memphis. While Wells was already an accomplished teacher, activist and journalist, her outrage was fueled by the lynchings on March 9, 1892, of her friend Thomas Moss, along with Calvin McDowell and Will Stewart, co-owners of People’s Grocery. Moss was also a postman, and Wells was godmother to his first child. Moss had opened the grocery in 1889, and the white grocer across the street was losing business to the successful Black-owned grocery.

“The city of Memphis has demonstrated that neither character nor standing avails the Negro, if he dares to protect himself against the white man or become his rival.” ~ Ida B. Wells-Barnett

A black and a white youth playing marbles together near People’s Grocery turned into a youthful fight. The black and white grocery owners intervened to protect their youth. The lynchings, though, seemed to be used as an excuse to eliminate the competition. Unfortunately, the words of Wells and her recommendations for action still ring true today as we face hate crimes and other attempts to diminish black youth, adults and black-owned businesses as well as the spread of increased divisiveness and hatred urged even by the “White” House.

October 26, 1892, Wells published Southern Horrors: Lynch Law in All Its Phases. She then penned The Red Record, documenting lynchings since Emancipation. Threats and attempts on her life led her to flee Memphis and move ultimately to Chicago in 1895 where she met and married Ferdinand L. Barnett, a journalist and widower with two sons. Even bearing four more children, Wells-Barnett continued her research, analysis, writings, speaking and other activism. She spoke in Europe where The Red Record was disseminated widely. 

Wells-Barnett reflected, “Beginning with the emancipation of the Negro, the inevitable result of unbridled power exercised for two and a half centuries, by the white man over the Negro, began to show itself in acts of conscienceless outlawry. During the slave regime, the Southern white man owned the Negro body and soul. It was to his interest to dwarf the soul and preserve the body….“But Emancipation came and the vested interests of the white man in the Negro's body were lost.”

Wells clarified, “The southern white man would not consider that the Negro had any right which a white man was bound to respect… regardless of numbers, the white man should rule…”Even when poll taxes and other atrocities diminished black votes, Wells exclaimed, “Brutality still continued; Negroes were whipped, scourged, exiled, shot and hung whenever and wherever it pleased the white man so to treat them…”

“If this work can contribute in any way toward proving this, and at the same time arouse the conscience of the American people to a demand for justice to every citizen, and punishment by law for the lawless,I shall feel I have done my race a service.” ~ Ida B. Wells-Barnett

But Wells’ legacy was long overlooked. Historians, activists and ordinary people fought for years to shed light on Wells’ stories, eventually seeing their efforts pay off with renewed prominence. In Chicago, Wells’ name ended up on a downtown thoroughfare. The New York Times published her obituary as part of its “Overlooked” series.