Ida Wells Timeline

  • Born in Holy Springs, MIssissippi

  • Period: to

    Ida Wells LIfe

  • Death of Mother, Father Little Brother

    Ida loses her parents and 10-month-old brother to yellow fever. In order to support her younger siblings (and keep them out of foster homes), Ida drops out of school and becomes a teacher in an all-black elementary school.
  • SouthWestern Railroad

    A train conductor orders Wells to give up her seat on the train. She refuses, and later sues the railroad for illegal racial segregation.
  • Court Case

    Sued and won court case for sueing the railroad for illegal racial segregation
  • Writer

    Ida Wells becomes a co-owner and editor for the "Free Speech and Headlight," and writes articles about anti-segregation and race-equality.
  • Speech

    Wells writes her famous speech, "Southern Horrors: Lynch Law in All Its Phases.
  • Southern Horrors: Lynch Law in All Its Phases

    Wells writes her famous speech, "Southern Horrors: Lynch Law in All Its Phases." Wells discusses the social factors and causes behind lynch mobs and irrational fear of black men, and also protests racial inequality before the law.
  • NAACP

    Ida Wells founds the N.A.A.C.P. alongside W. E. B. Du Bois, Archibald Grimké, Henry Moskowitz, Mary White Ovington, Oswald Garrison Villard, William English Walling, Florence Kelley, and Charles Edward Russell.
  • Autobiography

    Ida Wells begins writing her autobiography
  • Death

    dies in Chicago