Ida Bell Wells (1862-1931) fully embraced the fight for women’s suffrage, in part as a political avenue for black women to elect politicians who would favor legislation to improve black communities. In furtherance of that ideal, Wells marched in the first national women’s suffrage parade held in Washington, D.C., on March 3, 1913 on the eve of Woodrow Wilson’s first inauguration as president of the United States. Though black suffragists were relegated to the back of the parade in an effort to appease southern white suffragists whose votes were needed to pass the 19th Amendment, Wells joined the white Illinois delegation from her home state at the last minute in protest of this decision.

Wells was born into slavery in 1862 in Holly Springs, Mississippi, during the Civil War. She was one of Elizabeth “Lizzie” and James Wells eight children. Throughout her life, racial segregation was common practice, but Wells made it her mission to seek racial and gender equality and justice.

Following the death of her parents and a brother to a yellow fever epidemic in 1878, Wells raised her remaining siblings. In 1883, they all moved to Memphis, Tennessee, to stay with an aunt while Wells worked for the Shelby County school system. During her summer breaks, she attended LeMoyne-Owen College in Memphis and Fisk University in Nashville.

At twenty two, while Wells was traveling on a train, the Conductor asked her to move to the Colored Section. She refused and was forcibly removed. Wells successfully sued the railroad, but her case was overturned on appeal. This bold move by Wells took place several decades before Rosa Parks’ famous refusal to give up her seat to a white passenger on a segregated bus in Montgomery, Alabama in 1955.

“[Ida B. Wells] has plenty of nerve; she is smart as a steel trap, and she has no sympathy with humbug,” wrote T. Thomas Fortune—American orator, civil rights leader, journalist, writer, editor, and publisher of The New York Age.

Wells co-owned and wrote for Memphis Free Speech and Headlight newspaper, which she used as her platform to launch her anti-lynching crusade.Frederick Douglass described her as a “Brave woman!”

Wells also organized The Women’s Club, was involved in the formation of the National Association of Colored Women’s Club, and helped stop the proposed segregation of Chicago Public Schools among many other extraordinary accomplishments.