"As an investigative journalist, Ida B. Wells acted as a documentarian of those atrocities, risking her own life many times over to force Americans to recognize the scourge of lynching. "If the Southern people in defense of their lawlessness, would tell the truth and admit that colored men and women are lynched for almost any offense, from murder to a misdemeanor, there would not now be the necessity for this defense," she wrote in her book The Red Record: Tabulated Statistics and Alleged Causes of Lynching in the United States. "But when they intentionally, maliciously and constantly belie the record and bolster up these falsehoods by the words of legislators, preachers, governors and bishops, then the Negro must give to the world his side of the awful story." Wells devoted her life to sharing those stories, and as her career went on, she also became involved in a number of other social, political, and cultural organizations aimed at uplifting her community."
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Civil rights activistsFree speech activistsWomen journalists from the United StatesWomen's rights activistsInvestigative journalists
Original Language: English
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Kim Kelly (journalist) Fight Like Hell: The Untold History of American Labor (2022)
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Ida_B._Wells
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Ida B. Wells
Ida Bell Wells-Barnett (July 16, 1862 – March 25, 1931) was an African-American investigative journalist, educator, and an early leader in the civil rights movement.
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