Ida B. Wells

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Ida B. Wells (1862–1931) was an African American journalist, activist, suffragist, and civil rights leader. Born a slave, Wells was freed, along with her parents, by Abraham Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation. After being orphaned at age fourteen, she put herself through college while caring for her five siblings. Outraged by the prevalence of lynching, Wells wrote several pieces of investigative journalism that exposed the violent hypocrisy running rampant in the American South. Throughout her life, she fought tirelessly for justice and equality for African Americans.