Even as Ida B. Wells became a prominent anti-lynching activist and journalist, she still didn’t have the right to vote. While she continued to write, report, and be a vocal opponent of racial discrimination and violence, she also turned her attention to women’s suffrage. But she often encountered racism within the suffrage movement itself.

Through writing, Ida B. Wells found her “real” self. As she put pen to paper, her words became an important tool to analyze, debate, and persuade readers on the issues of the day, particularly when it came to race and gender. But after the lynching of her close friend in Memphis, Wells found a new kind of power in her pen. Using investigative and data journalism techniques long before they were common, Wells exposed the ugly truth about the violence white mobs perpetrated against Black Americans in a way that experts say cemented her legacy as a dogged investigative reporter.

Ida B. Wells accomplished a lot in her lifetime. A prolific writer, she published countless editorials, pamphlets, and reports on lynching and other issues, including education, segregation, and women’s suffrage. Though her work went unrecognized in the mainstream in the decades following her death, her descendants worked to ensure Ida’s legacy was acknowledged.

In 1893, Ida B. Wells first traveled to Chicago for the World’s Columbian Exposition. Standing at the entrance to the Haitian Pavilion, Wells handed out pamphlets to fairgoers that described “a clear, plain statement of facts concerning the oppression put upon the colored people in this land of the free and home of the brave.” She had written the pamphlet, called "The Reason Why the Colored American Is Not in the World’s Columbian Exposition" with Frederick Douglass and two other men. Because Wells had been exiled from her home in Memphis following the publication of her reports on lynching, Wells eventually made Chicago her home. Here, she continued to write as she waded into politics and the suffrage movement and also worked to support her community.

On a September day in 1883, 21-year-old Ida B. Wells boarded a train from Memphis to her teaching job in Shelby County, Tennessee. Sitting in the ladies’ car, Wells read her newspaper. When the conductor began collecting tickets, he told Wells that the car she was in was for white ladies only. After she refused, the conductor and another train employee removed Wells by force as white passengers cheered them on. But for Ida B. Wells, the fight didn’t stop there. If anything, that moment was just the beginning of a life devoted to the fight for justice.

On a September day in 1883, 21-year-old Ida B. Wells was on a train from Memphis to her teaching job in Shelby County, Tennessee. Aboard the ladies’ car, Ida read her newspaper. When the conductor began collecting tickets, he told Ida that the car she was in was for white ladies only. After she refused, the conductor and another train employee removed Ida by force as white passengers cheered them on. But for Ida B. Wells, the fight didn’t stop there. If anything, that moment was just the beginning of a life devoted to the fight for justice.

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There are few Chicago historical figures whose life and work speak to the current moment more than Ida B. Wells, the 19th century crusading investigative journalist, civil rights leader, and passionate suffragist. In the wake of her recent posthumous Pulitzer Prize citation, Chicago street naming, and the release of a revealing new biography by her great-granddaughter Michelle Duster, WTTW brings you a new CHICAGO STORIES special that tells her story as never before.