Chicago — The Ida B. Wells Commemorative Art Committee has commissioned renowned Chicago sculptor Richard Hunt to create a monument honoring the 150th anniversary of the birth of civil rights and liberties activist Ida B. Wells.
Wells, who was born July 16, 1862, was a journalist, teacher, anti-lynching crusader, women’s rights activist, and civil rights pioneer.
She lived in the vibrant mixed income African-American neighborhood known as Bronzeville on the near South Side of Chicago from 1895 to 1931. A housing project named for her stood in the neighborhood for more than 60 years but was torn down in 2002.
Former Ida B. Wells Homes resident Sandra Young, a Chicago Housing Authority (CHA) commissioner and Wells committee co-chair, said Wells “did so much important work for this city and the world, fighting for justice and equal housing, that we all felt the need to make sure people didn’t forget about her. With this monument, current and future generations can come to Bronzeville and learn about the great things that this strong woman did.”
Once completed, the Ida B. Wells Commemorative Art Committee will donate the work of art to the City of Chicago’s public art collection. The monument will be installed in Bronzeville on the median strip on 37th Street and Langley Avenue.
Ida B. Wells was born into slavery in Holly Springs, Mississippi. She was orphaned at 16 after both of her parents and a younger sibling died from a yellow fever epidemic. In order to support and care for her five remaining siblings, she secured a job as a teacher. She eventually moved to Memphis where she became a leading journalist and civil rights activist.
When her newspaper office was destroyed in an angry response to her outspoken writings, Ida B. Wells was exiled from Memphis, and stayed away from the South for over 30 years. In 1893 and 1894, she traveled across the United States and throughout the United Kingdom and Great Britain, passionately writing and speaking out against lynching. She eventually moved to Chicago and married Ferdinand L. Barnett in 1895. The widowed Ferdinand was an attorney and editor of The Conservator, one of Chicago’s Black newspapers. In addition to the two children from his first marriage, he and Ida had four children together.
Ida B. Wells-Barnett continued her activism while juggling motherhood and her many civil rights commitments. In 1909, she was one of the founders of the NAACP, although she later had conflicts with its leadership because she was perceived as too “radical.” She also worked with Susan B. Anthony as a leader in the movement for women’s suffrage.
In Chicago, Ms. Wells worked with Jane Addams to prevent the establishment of segregated public schools, helped to open Chicago’s first kindergarten for Black children, founded the Negro Fellowship League to assist Black men and boys who were excluded from the YMCA, and started the Alpha Suffrage Club – an organization of Black women who worked to obtain the right to vote.
Ida B. Wells-Barnett died on March 25, 1931, at the age of 68, from a brief illness due to kidney failure. She and her husband, Ferdinand L. Barnett, are interred together in Chicago’s Oak Woods Cemetery.
To donate to the Ida B. Wells Monument creation fund, donors may make checks payable to the Chicago Office of Tourism and Culture. Donations must be made in the form of a check with the following language written in the check’s memo line: “Ida B. Wells Monument.”
Send checks to:
The Ida B. Wells Commemorative Art Committee
P.O. Box A3334
Chicago, Illinois 60690-3334
For more information, call Ida B. Wells Commemorative Art Committee at 773-382-6115 or visit their website at http://www.idabwellsmonument.org/