Enduring Legacy

Hello Friends,

It’s Black History Month in the US, and I’d like to talk about Ida B. Wells.

A fierce advocate for racial and women’s equality and justice, Ida B. Wells did what few were willing to do. In 1884, she refused to sit in the “Jim Crow” car of a train and was dragged from it by force, 71 years before Rosa Parks’ famous act.

“I refused, saying that the forward car [closest to the locomotive] was a smoker, and as I was in the ladies’ car, I proposed to stay. . . [The conductor] tried to drag me out of the seat, but the moment he caught hold of my arm I fastened my teeth in the back of his hand. I had braced my feet against the seat in front and was holding to the back, and as he had already been badly bitten he didn’t try it again by himself. He went forward and got the baggage man and another man to help him and of course they succeeded in dragging me out.”

She sued the Chesapeake and Ohio Railroad Company. A Black woman in Memphis in 1884 sued a white company and won in the lower courts. She lost her case when it was appealed to the Tennessee Supreme Court, but the publicity gave her a platform from which to do future work.

We owe her a great many debts, but the most important one to me is that she worked tirelessly as a journalist, author, and public speaker both throughout the US and in Europe to bring attention to the hideous crimes of lynching in the US.

“Brave men do not gather by thousands to torture and murder a single individual, so gagged and bound he cannot make even feeble resistance or defense.”

Today I cannot read the words above without thinking of those locked in our prisons, or trapped in cages run by ICE and the DHS. I also cannot help but think of all those Black and Indigenous people killed by police acting as judge, jury, and executioner.

Or white, torch and gun carrying fascists terrorizing our streets in the name of white supremacy.

As a writer, I honor the power of words. I also honor the power of action. The words and actions of Ida B. Wells – firmly rooted in her times – are part of her enduring legacy.

Ida B. Wells became the first African American woman to run for public office in 1930, one year before she died.

Wells was a fighter to the end. May we take her example to heart and rise to the occasion. May we speak out about what matters, and organize together to build a more just society.

blessings - Thorn

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