They Say: Ida B. Wells and the Reconstruction of Race, by James W. Davidson. Ida B. Wells as a parallel to African Americans trying to gain empowerment in post-emancipation America

Lana Cox

History 121

Professor Adejumobi

November 7, 2008

Critical Book Review

They Say: Ida B. Wells and the Reconstruction of Race

By James West Davidson

Ida B. Wells, an African-American woman, and feminist, shaped the image of empowerment and citizenship during post-reconstruction times. The essays, books, and newspaper articles she wrote, instigated the dialogue of race struggles between whites and blacks, while her personal narratives, including two diaries, a travel journal, and an autobiography, recorded the personal struggle of a woman to define womanhood during post-emancipation America. The novel, They Say: Ida B. Wells and the Reconstruction of Race , provides an insight into how Ida B. Wells's life paralleled that of African-Americans trying to gain citizenship and empowerment in post-slavery America.

From the beginning, Ida B. Wells was shaped by firm moral convictions and religious beliefs taught to her by her mother and father. Ida B. Wells was born to Jim and Elizabeth Wells in Holly Springs, Mississippi, on July 16, 1862.

A man lynched from a tree. Face partially conceale...

Ida B. Wells Barnett

English: , Chicago, Illinois]]

Ida B. Wells attended Shaw University until the deaths of her parents and youngest brother during the yellow fever epidemic that claimed her parents' lives in less than a week. She mentioned in her diary that her parents would "turn in their graves" if her remaining family were to be separated, so at sixteen, she became a schoolteacher, in order to support her brothers and sisters so they would not be given to different parents and separated. Later, she began teaching in Woodstock, Tennessee, a rural community in Shelby County, but moved to Memphis when she obtained a position in the public schools in 1884.


During this year in Memphis, Ida B. Wells sued the Chesapeake, Ohio and Southwestern Railroads after she was lifted and carried out and removed from the first-class...