Willingboro Township Public Schools

Ida B. Wells was born in 1862, in Holly Springs, Mississippi. She was born enslaved and freed by the Emancipation Proclamation. Ida B. Wells wrote about issues of race and politics in the South. A number of her articles were published in Black newspapers and periodicals under the nickname "Iola." Ida B. Wells spoke out against segregated schools—which forced Black children to go to separate schools—and other forms of discrimination in the southern states. In 1892, she began an anti-lynching campaign. She wrote newspaper articles decrying the lynching of her friend that took place in Memphis and the wrongful deaths of other African Americans.