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Artist
Sallie E. Garrity, c. 1862 - 1907
Sitter
Ida Bell Wells-Barnett, 16 Jul 1862 - 25 Mar 1931
Date
c. 1893
Type
Photograph
Medium
Albumen silver print
Dimensions
Image/Sheet: 13.9 x 9.8 cm (5 1/2 x 3 7/8")
Mount: 16.3 x 10.7 cm (6 7/16 x 4 3/16")
Mat: 45.7 x 35.6 cm (18 x 14")
Topic
Photographic format\Cabinet card
Ida Bell Wells-Barnett: Female
Ida Bell Wells-Barnett: Literature\Writer
Ida Bell Wells-Barnett: Journalism and Media\Journalist
Ida Bell Wells-Barnett: Journalism and Media\Editor
Ida Bell Wells-Barnett: Education and Scholarship\Educator\Teacher
Ida Bell Wells-Barnett: Society and Social Change\Reformer\Activist\Civil rights activist
Ida Bell Wells-Barnett: Society and Social Change\Enslaved person
Portrait
Place
United States\Illinois\Cook\Chicago
Credit Line
National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution
Restrictions & Rights
CC0
Object number
NPG.2009.36
Exhibition Label
In 1884, the journalist Ida B. Wells filed a lawsuit against the Chesapeake, Ohio and Southwestern Railroad after being forcibly removed from the ladies’ train car because she was black. Wells, who had been traveling from Memphis to the nearby town of Woodstock, won the trial in Shelby County but lost the appeal at the Tennessee Supreme Court. After this, she focused on advocating for the civil rights of African Americans—including suffrage.
In 1913, at the suffrage parade in Washington, D.C., she famously refused to march in the back with the other African American women. Instead, she marched at the front of the Illinois suffrage delega- tion. Her gumption distinguished her. Among the most famous black authors of the late nineteenth century, Wells protested lynching and made a crusade to have it federally outlawed. In 1892, she denounced the purported rationale behind it: “Nobody . . . believes the old threadbare lie that Negro men rape white women.”
En 1884, la periodista Ida B. Wells demandó a las compañías ferroviarias Chesapeake & Ohio y Southwestern luego de ser expulsada a la fuerza del vagón de damas por ser de raza negra. Wells, quien viajaba de Memphis al cercano pueblo de Woodstock, ganó el juicio en Shelby County, pero perdió la apelación en el Tribunal Supremo de Tennessee. Desde entonces se dedicó a defender los derechos civiles de los afroamericanos, incluido el sufragio.
En 1913, durante el desfile sufragista en Washington, D.C., causó revuelo cuando se negó a marchar en la parte de atrás, con las demás afroamericanas, y se colocó al frente de la delegación de Illinois. Siempre se distinguió por sus agallas. Fue una de las autoras negras más famosas de fines del siglo XIX y alzó su voz contra los linchamientos, liderando una cruzada para prohibirlos mediante legislación federal. En 1892 denunció la supuesta razón para dicha práctica: “Nadie [...] cree esa mentira trillada de que los hombres negros violan a las mujeres blancas”.
