Michelle Duster and William Greaves at a screening of his documentary, Ida B. Wells: A Passion for Justice.
I was drawn to and inspired by how she refused to make herself small, even when others expected that of African American women, who were relegated to being second-class citizens in many respects. And so, after years of wrestling with the idea of “fitting in,” both socially and career-wise, I accepted the fact that I was simply different than most people around me. I had been a bridesmaid more than a dozen times and still had no desire to get married. I decided to unapologetically live life on my own terms, which was a more entrepreneurial and unconventional path, just like the one my great-grandmother followed.
Carrying the Torch
During my maturation from early adulthood to my fifties, I worked in both New York City and Chicago in advertising, marketing communications, event and concert production, and film production. Always writing—for someone else. During the Great Recession of 2008, my life came to a crossroads. I was one of the millions who lost their job. In addition, the Ida B. Wells Homes had been demolished to make way for a mixed-income community. The historian Paula Giddings’s biography, Ida: A Sword Among Lions: Ida B. Wells and the Campaign Against Lynching, was published. I had to decide my next move.
I decided to write about my family, and edited a book of my great-grandmother’s writings. On behalf of my family, I contacted Mayor Richard M. Daley and asked that the city do something to honor my great-grandmother as a woman. My argument was that she was a woman, not a building. And she should be remembered.
Luckily, others had the same request, and I was asked to join a committee that had already been formed. Little did I know that I was embarking on a new life path of activism. Since that time, I have advocated for the creation of a historical marker to remember the housing community and Ida. I was involved in having a major street named after her in Chicago. In her hometown of Holly Springs, Mississippi, my father and his siblings provided support to the Ida B. Wells-Barnett Museum. I decided to join them in this effort and also made never-ending requests of politicians to have signage put on Highway 78 to indicate the museum. I felt that people who were traveling to see Elvis Presley’s hometown of Tupelo should at least know that Holly Springs was Ida’s hometown.
My grandmother’s generation is gone, and my father’s generation is leaving us. I looked up one day and realized that getting these stories into the world is up to my generation and beyond. Now, my brothers, cousins, and I are the keepers of the flame, and I intend to do everything possible to make sure that my great-grandmother and other Black women who made this country what it is will have their stories told, too.
Ida B. Wells-Barnett’s letter to President Woodrow Wilson protesting General Ballou’s Bulletin Number 35 for the 92nd Division, Camp Funston, Kansas.
III. A Voice for the People
The way to right wrongs is to turn the light of truth upon them.
—Ida B. Wells
She Shall Not Be Moved
One day, Ida opened the door of the Negro Fellowship League, the organization she had started informally in 1908 with a group of her Bible study students, and saw a white man standing there. Though some white people had helped provide financial support for the project, the Negro Fellowship League most often saw Black people arrive at its doorstep. The neighborhood center opened in 1910 to provide Black migrants seeking work in Chicago a place to commune. As Ida saw it, prior to the Negro Fellowship League Reading Room and Social Center’s existence, “only one social center welcomes the Negro, and that is the saloon.”
The Chicago center became more than just a gathering space. Through the Negro Fellowship League, Ida and her husband, Ferdinand L. Barnett, a lawyer, helped many young Black men who were falsely accused of crimes. Many of those men were released. An average of forty-five people per day enjoyed the meeting space. Some stayed upstairs in the dormitory for less than fifty cents per night, giving them a place to rest. The reading room was open from 9 a.m. to 10 p.m. Ida and the Bible study students kept it stocked with Chicago newspapers, so the men could look through the job ads. Southern papers such as the New Orleans Tribune and the Oklahoma Eagle were also available so that they could read about events back home.
It didn’t just serve those who regularly spent time there: the center also hosted weekly lectures by a variety of prominent speakers, ranging from white reformers such as Jane Addams and Mary White Ovington to Black intellectuals such as William Monroe Trotter, Irvine Garland Penn, and the historian Carter G. Woodson.
So even when their supporters’ funds dried up three years into the project, Ida and Ferdinand fought to keep the League open. First, they moved the center to smaller quarters two blocks to the south, at 3005 South State Street. The new building was just a storefront, with a rent of $35 a month (or about $1,000 in modern currency). Ida then found herself a paying job in order to earn the money to support the center.
And that’s how Ida B. Wells-Barnett became Chicago’s first female probation officer.
The job paid $150 a month, a little over four times the rent on the center’s building. And despite the demanding schedule, she was able to juggle doing that job along with her work at the Negro Fellowship League. After working a full day at court, she went to the center until at least eight in the evening. She was willing to sacrifice her own time in order to help these young men get on their feet and successfully transition to life in the city. Being from the South, she knew where they were coming from and realized that all they needed was some support.
Ida held her probation officer post, in addition to her work at the center, for three years. All told, through sheer grit and using some of their own money, she and Ferdinand managed to keep the Negro Fellowship League open for a total of ten years, until 1920. During that time, Ida had helped find jobs for approximately a thousand men and had provided a place to stay for many others who might have otherwise been left to roam the streets.
A white man showed up at the door looking for Ida B. Wells-Barnett.
Standing in a long, embroidered dress with a high collar, her hair carefully arranged in a bun atop her head, the short, brown-skinned woman asked what exactly the man wanted. When he told her that he needed to ask about the buttons that he’d heard were being distributed from the Negro Fellowship League office, Ida walked over to a desk in the reading room and social center, which housed a library she’d grown proud of—especially for its “race literature.”
She pulled out a button, then handed it to the man, a reporter from the Herald Examiner. Ida and her husband, Ferdinand, had made buttons to honor soldiers who had been killed by the government. The man eyed it and asked to keep the item.
Ida didn’t mind giving the reporter the button—as far as she was concerned, the more people knew about their existence, the better. It didn’t matter that the reporter had yet to understand why they were made in the first place. Ida could explain that. She was used to explaining.
After their exchange, the reporter did indeed leave with a button. Ida hoped that a story would be written about how the soldiers were being honored. But less than two hours after the reporter left, two different white men came to the office.
What now? Ida thought to herself. It was unusual for white people to show up at the Negro Fellowship League. After all, it was designed mostly for Black men who had migrated from the South and needed a place to stay.
One of the many ways Ida B. Wells engaged with her community was by talking to local newspapers, such as the Herald Examiner, about her projects.
The community space hosted lectures and readings. It was a quiet, studious area. What’s more, it was located in a part of the South Side of Chicago that even some Black people were nervous to visit. What could two other white men possibly want here on the same day?
The men held a picture of the button that Ida had given the Herald Examiner reporter. They asked if she was distributing those buttons. When she said yes, they told her they were Secret
Service agents who had been sent out to warn her.
“If you continue to distribute those buttons, you could be arrested,” one of them said.
“On what charge?” she asked.
Ida’s conversation with the reporter had certainly gone better than her exchange with the Secret Service agents. After the Herald Examiner journalist asked to see the buttons, Ida inquired about whether he’d heard what happened with the 3rd Battalion of the 24th Infantry. He said that he had, but he didn’t get what was so upsetting about the matter.
Maybe if the reporter understood, he would agree that the buttons needed to be produced. So even knowing he was short on time, Ida proceeded to tell him: A predominantly Black army unit was sent from New Mexico to guard the construction of Camp Logan on the edge of Houston, Texas. Even though these men were expected to serve their country and fight for democracy abroad, their own country expected them to endure the humiliation of Jim Crow laws. They were met with hostility from racist white police officers, racist civilians, and laws that relegated them to second-class citizenship. The Black soldiers rode in segregated streetcars; the white workers building the camps hated their very presence.
SEGREGATION WAS NOTHING NEW
Segregation was nothing new to the majority of the soldiers posted at the camp. Many of them had been raised in the South. They knew the harsh reality of Jim Crow laws. But these men had endured training to protect and defend democracy in another country. They were wearing a uniform meant to represent their country, so they expected to be treated as full citizens of that nation. The soldiers were angered by the “Whites Only” signs they encountered; they grew upset each time someone was called a “nigger” in Houston.
These men were trained to fight. They’d undergone a strict regimen to learn how to protect their country, and that same rigorous preparation inspired them not to show a deferential attitude toward white people. Some white people considered them to be “uppity” and viewed them as a threat. The men were met with disdain, especially from white people who believed that if they treated Black soldiers with respect, then other Black people would expect the same. They couldn’t fathom the existence of Black people with authority. So tensions grew between the Black troops guarding Camp Logan and the people of Houston, especially the police.
And then, on August 23, 1917, a Black soldier witnessed a white police officer, Lee Sparks, attempting to arrest a Black woman. When the soldier defended the Black woman, he was clubbed and then arrested. Corporal Charles W. Baltimore, a Black military policeman, went to find out what happened with the soldier, and an argument broke out. He, too, was beaten. Though he fled, Baltimore was later detained. Things escalated quickly. Rumors swirled. The town erupted into a frenzy. The Black soldiers stationed at Camp Logan heard that a white mob was coming to attack the camp.
Rather than wait like sitting ducks for the vigilantes, dozens of Black soldiers grabbed rifles and headed into downtown Houston against the orders of their superior officers. Over the course of two hours, total chaos ensued as soldiers, police, and local residents became embattled.
It had been a dark, rainy night when all the blood was shed. It was difficult to see anything in the mayhem. As a result, no one could identify the specific soldier who fired the shots that killed Captain J. W. Mattes. And so, in order to save themselves from persecution, seven Black soldiers later agreed to testify against the others in exchange for clemency.
Ultimately, a total of 118 enlisted Black soldiers were arrested, and sixty-three of the soldiers were charged with mutiny. In a mockery of a trial, they were represented by a single lawyer during the first court-martial that was convened. The accused were not even granted a chance to appeal. The soldiers were denied their constitutional rights to due process.
On November 28, 1917, thirteen Black soldiers were found guilty and sentenced to death, including Corporal Baltimore. Two weeks later, on December 11, they were hanged. An additional seven were hanged within weeks after that, and seven others were acquitted, while the rest were sentenced to various prison terms. The bodies of United States soldiers, who had trained to fight for democracy abroad, were unceremoniously thrown into mass graves with each individual identified only by a number from 1 to 13. Afterward, the scaffolding from which they were hanged was burned, too. Not one white person was punished for the travesty. No civilians were ever brought to trial, and the two officers who faced court martial were released.
Ida could not help but think about the injustice of it all. Her stepson, Ferdinand Jr., was in the army. How were he and other Black soldiers supposed to defend a country where they had no rights themselves? How could the United States government execute its own soldiers?
Ida believed that people should protest the injustice that took place in Houston, but she thought nothing would happen unless her Negro Fellowship League organized it. She and her husband, Ferdinand, wanted to hold a memorial service to honor the lives of the men who died, as a small, peaceful way to protest. She called the pastors of several large churches and asked if any of them would allow their sanctuaries to be used for a service. Unfortunately, none of them agreed. She was disappointed—it seemed that the same churches that had urged members to join the war were not brave enough to honor the soldiers who had been murdered by the government.
In 2017, one hundred years after the Houston riot, a marker was placed to commemorate that history.
The pastors seemed afraid. The climate wasn’t just hostile to Black people. Various “citizens’ organizations” had emerged to police whether Americans were “patriotic enough.” At the time, that included Americans of German heritage because the United States was fighting Germany. German-language books were burned. German Americans were fired from their jobs en masse, despite the fact that many were fighting for the United States. If white Americans were persecuting other white people, many African Americans knew they could expect even worse.
Any Black church that protested the soldiers’ execution in Houston could be targeted, even burned down, by these citizens’ organizations, who saw themselves as guardians of patriotism. So no one wanted to support the Barnetts after the Espionage Act of June 1917. Anyone who helped the Barnetts could be said to be interfering with the conduct of the war. This was a vague charge that could be used for anything from being “disloyal” to making false or malicious statements that could hinder the military effort. Anyone found guilty could be fined thousands of dollars or endure a lengthy prison sentence.
Ida took matters into her own hands, quite literally. She created buttons reading “In Memoriam Martyred Negro Soldiers Dec. 11, 1917.” She printed five hundred, then distributed them far and wide. She protested what she considered to be a “legal” lynching of Black soldiers. When she couldn’t secure a space to host the memorial, she decided to sell the buttons to recoup the cost of having them made. She wanted to make sure the soldiers’ deaths did not go unnoticed.
She knew the buttons were controversial, but she felt so strongly about the immorality of what had taken place in Houston that she didn’t care about the backlash that was sure to come.
After all, it was 1917, and, much to Ida B.’s dismay, President Woodrow Wilson was in office. Wilson was a staunch segregationist. His administration even segregated federal employees by race where they had not before: Black and white clerks who worked for the government were forbidden from using the same bathrooms and restaurants. In fact, Ida had visited Wilson at the White House in 1913 to urge him to stop the segregation. Nothing was done. A few years later, the United States officially entered World War I and expected all citizens to show their patriotism and loyalty to the country—even Black citizens who had been denied the full rights imbued to them by the Constitution. Despite centuries of discrimination, thousands of Black men volunteered to join the fight, later joined by thousands more drafted into the army’s ranks (the other branches did not accept Black enlistees at all). The war was seen by many as an opportunity to “earn” equality through service. But
the battlefield provided little relief from even the most basic indignities. Black soldiers served in segregated units, watched over exclusively by white commanding officers.
Ida relayed all this to the reporter at her door. She explained that the men were soldiers for the United States Army. They were supposed to defend this country against enemies in other countries. Instead, they were killed by their own government. They didn’t even have a chance to prove their case.
Even when the reporter suggested that the soldiers could have waited instead of taking up arms, Ida was resolute in her conviction. She was emphatic that even if what they had done was wrong, they had not deserved to be killed like that. She encouraged the reporter to take the button and let other people know what this country did to its own citizens. She wanted everyone to know about the crime that had been committed by the government. And it wasn’t the first time this had happened.
Ida B. the Queen Page 2
