Beginning in the early 2000s, demolition began on an aging public housing community in Chicago named for Ida B. Wells, the pioneering investigative journalist and activist who cast a light on systemic lynching in the United States over a five-decade career.
As the structures fell, author Michelle Duster felt as if the public memory of her great-grandmother’s courageous actions was slowly being erased — even as the country reeled from many of the same issues Wells confronted with her biting reportage.
She told a Feb. 23 National Press Club virtual Headliners book event that she decided to tell Wells’ story, relating it to the current era of police violence, watchdog journalism and, Duster said, incomplete representations of Black Americans in the media.
“She grew up during a very violent period in our country’s history and documented the extreme level of detail when it came to the reality regarding lynching,” Duster said as she discussed her book, “Ida B. the Queen: The Extraordinary Life and Legacy of Ida B. Wells.”
“She was countering false narratives at that time that were pervasive,” Duster added, “which might sound a little familiar even today.”
Duster — a writer, speaker and professor who has written, edited, or contributed to 11 books — said her interest in writing the book was to illustrate Wells’ impact while portraying her as an inspiration in today’s battles.
Wells was born into slavery in 1862 and lost both parents to yellow fever at age 16, forcing her into a parenting role for her five siblings, Duster recounted. Wells’ star rose with her journalistic ambition, fearless reporting and business acumen.
As co-owner of the Memphis Free Speech, her writing on racial injustice was syndicated nationwide, earning her a reputation as one of the most famous Black women of her time, Duster said.
She held “extraordinarily high standards” for community leaders, Duster said, as she zeroed in on the scourge of lynching. “She really would light into them in her newspaper articles,” she said, “and I was even like, wow. She gave people no mercy.”
In 1893, Frederick Douglass invited her to join a protest at the Chicago World’s Fair, Duster said. She ended up meeting her husband, Ferdinand Barnett, while working on a pamphlet, and moved to the Windy City.
Duster described her great-grandmother’s work as an early form of data journalism in the highest regard. Wells documented names, dates, locations and other information that were being used to lynch people.
“She was using facts — undisputable facts — in order to really build a case against the United States itself,” Duster explained, and even traveled to the United Kingdom in the 1890s to press for international pressure against the U.S. for domestic terrorism against its own citizens.
As part of her data-gathering, Wells used public statements and writings by those involved in lynchings. It’s similar to how a reporter today may research a subject’s Twitter feed or Facebook page, Duster said, and take screenshots of their unvarnished thoughts: “They can’t dispute it because they actually wrote it.”
Considering Black Lives Matter protests against police brutality, Duster said, Wells “would be a little disappointed." Wells sacrificed so much “over 50 years of her life fighting for freedom, justice and equality in our country."
But Duster said the intensity of Wells’ story, providing a more well-rounded portrayal of a Black woman, can also be “hopeful and inspiring at the same time.”
