Growing Up

Meeting Jim Crow

In 1886, when she was 24, Ida lost her teaching job after she criticized conditions in the Memphis schools. She had written a few articles for newspapers and decided to turn to journalism full time. Three years later, she bought a share in the Memphis Free Speech and Headlight and was appointed its editor. She was the first female co-owner and editor of a Black newspaper in the US. She began writing articles and editorials under the name “Iola.”

Crusader Against Lynching

Ida documented 728 lynching cases that had occurred between 1884 and 1892, using research by the Chicago Tribune. Within months of her friend’s murder, she wrote a collection of articles under the title Southern Horrors. She focused less on grisly details and more on the false accusations made against the victims. Her goal was “to arouse the conscience of America,” and she became America’s best-known crusader against lynching.

Suffragist

Ida was also a staunch supporter of women securing the right to vote. She published “How Enfranchisement Stops Lynching” in Original Rights Magazine in 1910, showing that when Black voters in Illinois elected a Black state legislator in 1904, he worked to pass a law against mob violence. She co-founded the Alpha Suffrage Club in Chicago in 1913, which became the largest Black women’s suffrage organization in Illinois. In addition to supporting women’s efforts to obtain the vote, the Alpha Suffrage Club taught women how to be politically active and promoted Black candidates for office.

Later years