 Well hello from the National Archives Public Programs and Education Team. My name is Missy McNadd and I'm an Education Specialist in Washington, D.C. And welcome to the National Archives Comes Alive Young Learners Program. You can find information about future programs on the National Archives website, archives.gov under attend an event and on the National Archives Facebook page. This morning we meet Ida B. Wells, portrayed by Marty Goble, actor, director and educator. On this day, August 26th, 101 years ago, the 19th amendment, the amendment that gave women the right to vote was certified by the Secretary of State. But did all women have that right to vote after August 26th, 1920? So Ida B. Wells is here with us who is a civil rights activist, a journalist and a suffragette to talk about her work in the late 19th and early 20th century in improving the lives of African Americans. And she found that having the vote was one of the keys to making a difference. In the holdings of the National Archives, there are numerous records related to Ida B. Wells. On this next slide are two letters. One is a letter that Ida B. Wells wrote to President Wilson in 1918. And the other is a letter to Senator Dawes that Ms. Wells wrote in 1898. Both of these letters can be found in docsteachdocsteach.org. On the next slide, we have the featured activity for today's program in docsteach, again docsteach.org. And we will share this slide at the end of the program. So this, we will have a question and answer session with Ms. Wells at the end of her session. So write your questions in the YouTube chat box. We have a National Archives staff member who is monitoring it. And let us know where you're watching from today. This program is brought to you by the National Archives Public Programs and Education Team, the National Archives and the National Archives Foundation. And now it is my great pleasure to introduce to you Ida B. Wells, a truly remarkable woman whose tireless energy and efforts work to make a difference in the lives of African Americans. Oh my, what a sight. The 1893 Chicago World's Columbian Exposition. Bridges, parks, canals, lagoons, over 600 acres. And all of these palatial white plaster of Paris buildings here in the court of honor. Thine alabaster cities gleam. Oh, and a giant ferris wheel over 300 feet tall. I think I'll stay on the ground. Thank you very much. The white city, mostly white people too. People from all over the world have come to see the wonders of America, mostly white America, but other countries have exhibits here too. The tiny Republic of Haiti has erected this fine building and they place the famous author and abolitionist Mr. Frederick Douglass in charge of it. If not for this, Negroes of America would have no part in the World Fair because the United States government has refused participation to her Negro citizens. I came to the exposition a few weeks ago to work with Mr. Douglass on a pamphlet to distribute here. The reasons why the colored American has not been included in the exposition. It is a clear plain statement of facts concerning the oppression of the colored people in this land of the free and home of the brave. With this pamphlet, we hope to show the history of our race and our progress since the end of civil war. Mr. Douglass has been so kind to me and has made me more or less his protégé. He's even given me a desk here. One evening after our work, he asked me about my life, wondering how one so young and a woman at that had come to be involved in the betterment of our race. I begin to tell him about my life. I was born in 1862 in Holly Springs, Mississippi just outside of Memphis. I was born a slave child. My parents were slaves. My father was the son of his own master and a Negro woman named Peggy. When he was 18, he was brought to the plantation and was trained in the area of carpentry. With the end of civil war and with the great emancipation, I saw my parents spirits thrive with their newfound freedom. But one day when I was visiting my grandmother out on her country farm, life became a reality to me. A letter came. Jim and Lizzie Wells have both died of the fever. They died within 24 hours of each other. That was as far as I read. I returned home to Holly Springs and found out that the baby, Stanley, had died. I was now the oldest of six surviving children. There was no one but me to look after them now. And I was all of 16 years old. Rather than put my family in foster care, I was advised to apply to teach and I took the teachers exam and was given a teacher's position in a small country school. After a few years, I found a better paying position in Memphis and for several years, I rode the train back and forth. But one day after a long day of work, I got on the train and took my seat in first class. The conductor came along and took my ticket. He gave it back to me, telling me that he couldn't accept my ticket there and that I would have to move to the smoker's car. I refused. I had always comported myself appropriate to my position as a school teacher and I would not move to the smoker's car. And I went on reading. He came back again, telling me again, I would have to move to the smoker's car and tried to bodily remove me from my seat. But I took my feet and scrunched them up against the seat in front of me and bit the back of his hand with my teeth. He did not try that again. He came back later with three men who succeeded in pulling me from my feet, also kicking and screaming. I was furious. I marched back to Memphis and engaged a black attorney to help me bring suit against the railroad company. But he was bought off by the railroad company. I then hired a white attorney and was awarded $500. The case was later overturned by the Supreme Court. And I was charged court fees, which totaled more than the 500 I was awarded. Because of this incident, I decided it was time to stand up and fight for my race. I had always been a voracious reader. I had read Louisa May Alcott novels, Shakespeare and the Bible all the way through. But I had never read anything about Negroes or anything written by a Negro. And here began my love of writing. It wasn't long before I began writing for some of the local church papers. Soon other noobs papers across the country began running my articles too. Then came a lynching that changed the whole course of my life. Before I get into that, I need to tell you that I had joined a newspaper, The Free Speech. They asked me to come in as a partner. I insisted on purchasing one third interest and became an equal partner on the Free Speech newspaper. It was this paper that allowed me to share the details of a horrible lynching that took place. My dear friend, Thomas Moss, owned a colored grocery store just outside of the Memphis city limits. Tommy and his wife were my dearest friends in town. And he believed, as did I, that we should fight for justice whenever we could. Tommy's grocery store had been very successful and there had been some rumblings amongst the white community that it was becoming too successful. One day a young black boy and a young white boy were playing marbles in front of the store. The black boy won that game and the young white boy became very upset telling his father about the incident. His father came and started abusing this young black boy. The colored men inside Tommy's grocery store came out to aid him. When the white people left, they went into town and word got out that a group of white men were coming to the grocery store to clean it out. Tommy and several of his friends stationed themselves inside the grocery store with shotguns, not to attack, but to repel a threatened attack. At about 10 o'clock, shots rang out. The men inside the grocery store saw a group of white men stealing around the back of the grocery store and fired shots on them. One of the white men was wounded. They fled and went back into town. I will never forget. The Sunday paper ran this headline. White officers wounded in the pursuit of criminals. Criminals, no such thing was true. My friend was arrested and placed in jail. That very evening, a mob of white men came to the grocery store, pulled them into the woods and Tommy was horribly lynched. When his body was discovered, his eyes had been gouged out and three fingers on his left hand had been blown away. I went right to the free speech and began writing articles about the atrocity of lynching practices in America. Because of these few words, because of hinting at the truth, a group of white men came to the free speech office, burned all the furnishings, the type and left a note saying that anyone trying to publish the paper again would be punished with death. Now, I was out of town at the time attending a conference in Chicago and letters and telegrams came from family and friends telling me to stay where it was safe. There were orders to put me to death. They had threatened my life for merely hinting at the truth. I was made in exile, but I decided that I must march on. Subjected to continued threats, I moved from Memphis to Chicago where I met and married a black attorney, Ferdinand Barnett. Sometimes you will hear both of my names either be Wells or either be Wells Barnett and this is how those two names came to be. Somehow, now the mother of four children, I managed to all of this my home life with my activism. As an outspoken black activist, I faced regular public disapproval not only from other leaders in the civil rights movement but also from the women's suffrage movement. I traveled nationally and internationally on lecture tours twice to the United Kingdom where I shed light on lynching in America. From 1898 to 1902, I served as secretary of the National Afro-American Council. In 1909, I participated in the founding of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, the NAACP. I founded and became the very first president of the Negro Fellowship League which aided newly arrived migrants from the South. In 1913, I founded what may have been the very first black women suffrage group, Chicago's Alpha Suffrage Club. Several members and I traveled to Washington, DC to march in the women's suffrage procession in 1913. It was suggested at that time that we black women march together in the back rather than with our own state delegations. I refused and I waited on the sidewalk until the Illinois delegation approached where I was standing. I then joined my delegation and marched in the front row arm in arm with two white women. It was now beginning to move and be where it should have been all along for all of the people in the country be they white or black. So now my free paper, the free speech was no longer around, was no longer functioning based on the charges that were brought against me and the threat to my life. But I found that my work with the women's suffrage movement was just as important, just as important as standing up and fighting for my race and the women in my race. From 1913 to 1916, I served as a probation officer of the Chicago Municipal Court. I was militant in my demand for justice for African-Americans and in my insistence that justice was to be won by our own efforts. You see, I found that many times, African-Americans looked to white people to save them. My metal and my dedication to my people meant that I felt we had to do it for ourselves, by ourselves and with ourselves. This thinking and these thoughts led me in 1930 to run unsuccessfully for a seat on the Illinois State Senate. I didn't know at the time, but I was to die that next year in 1931 in my home of pneumonia. After my death, I was awarded a Pulitzer Prize Special Citation for my outstanding and courageous reporting on the horrific and vicious violence against African-Americans during the era of lynching. You know, many will feel that they have no obligation in any matter involving lynching or slavery or oppression or injustice of the African-American and other minorities. But I say to them, then you have made yourself a slave, a slave to oppression, a slave to indecency, a slave to complacency. I am reminded by a poem from the famous James Russell Lowe. I carry it with me always to remind me of its message. Men whose boasted is that ye are born of fathers brave and free. If they're breathed acely, are ye truly brave and free? Are ye not base slaves indeed? Slaves unworthy to be freed? Is true freedom but to break fetters for our own sake and with leather and hearts to forget that we owe mankind a debt? No. True freedom is to share all the chains our brothers bear and with heart and hand to be earnest to make. I want to thank you for letting me share a bit of my life and my work, but I must be off to hand out pamphlets. Come and walk with me if you'd like. As long as you're here, you might as well help out. Well, thank you so much, Ms. Wells. That's an amazing, I love the story and I love the poem that you used at the end. That's just wonderful. I'll have to look it up after this program, but thank you. And just to let you know, we've got folks from South Carolina, United Kingdom. So you obviously with your travels over there, you've inspired folks and from Maryland and New York and anyone else who's watching, type in where you're watching from and I will announce it. So we have some questions for you this morning and you were talking about, you know, your work as a, and the suffrage movement and the fact that you ran for office. So I'm, did you vote then after the 19th amendment was passed? I absolutely voted. It is a part and duty of every American citizen to participate in not only local politics, but global politics. As I shared with you, I traveled around the world talking about our political strife and some of the atrocities that were happening in America at that time. It is the duty of every American to register their voice through voting in order for us to engender change. And I assume you've voted several times between 1920 and your, you know, when you died in 1931. Miss McNat every time that I could. Every time. That's wonderful. And that you were able to do so. And that is heartening because, you know, there were many issues after 1920, not only for women, but and men as well, African-Americans. So that's fantastic. And perhaps it was because you were in Chicago too. That might have made a difference as well. Yes, but you know, as I stated, I reached a time when I had many people that were unhappy with my fierce and loud objection to many of the practices that were happening in the United States, people from my own race and also from the women's suffrage movement. There seemed to be an air of wanting to ease in. I do recall hearing a quote that when you'll have your head in the mouth of the lion, it is best to withdraw slowly. This has never been my practice. So that kind of brings up the next question, the personality traits that brought about who you are that helped you to do the things that you did as, you know, Ida B. Wells, the kind of person that she was. And I think we see a lot of that in your performance, but you might elaborate a little bit on it. Well, I'm a small woman. And I found that it required at times that I have a loud voice. I have been known to possess a fiery temper and a quick tongue. I'm very passionate in my speaking and in my writing. Yes, and I think that came across when you and the person tried to remove you. You resisted and that's, I think that says a lot about your efforts and your commitment to what you believed in. And I think that's fantastic. So, and I bet some of our viewers can guess the answer to this question, but what person in later history had a similar experience to yours in a train? This happened after my death. But the powers that be have shared with me that a young woman named Rosa Parks also went through a similar experience on a train. I mean, excuse me, on a bus during the Birmingham bus boycott. Many of the details of her removal and refusal to move to the back of the bus were similar to mine that occurred on the train. Yes. And you mentioned that you had children and just how many children did you have? And you also mentioned that it was a bit of a struggle to continue your work with the children and how did you manage that? My family was wonderful and as the older children became more confident, they also helped to care for each other. But I did have families, some siblings that helped to care for them as I traveled the world. But they were very aware of my incredible mission and dedication to the betterment of our race. So I did spend a lot of time traveling and family as is the tradition amongst many African-Americans on this day helped to aid and support in that. And as they grew, they of course learned to take care of themselves a little better. Another question, were you ever scared in your efforts to bring about change? And did you ever think you shouldn't be doing what you did? Did that ever cross your mind? I never thought that I shouldn't be doing what I did. Not once. The only way that things can change is if people speak up and they speak out through my articles, many articles through church, church newspapers, through the Associated Press and through many local African-American papers across the country. I never backed down with what I had to say. There was great fear in me when the free speech office was destroyed, most definitely. And again, that led me to not return to Memphis. I stayed in Chicago. They had threatened my life, not just my livelihood, but my life and my financial security, every penny that I had in the world was invested in that newspaper. To have it destroyed became very difficult. And remember, I still had my teaching certificate. I did set that down after a little while through a series of events, but I continue to write always, even after leaving Memphis and living in Chicago. So the fact that you read the writings, where are your papers? You can find them. There are many that can be found through your local library. I would ask that you look for a paper called A Red Record. And that also has a lot of my writings concerning the lynching and the barbaric practice used by whites in the South to intimidate and oppress. That is a great one. You can find many of these things at your local library and also online. And what do you think was your greatest achievement of all the many, many things that you did through your life? My greatest achievement was to help the women's suffrage movement. Also, I was one of the very few women at the time to run for the Senate in Illinois. And that set off a domino effect of things. I'm very proud of a pamphlet that I wrote called Southern Horrors, Lynch Law in All Its Faces. This shared a great deal about what was happening across the United States at the time. Yes. Did you ever go to Washington and to Congress with your concerns? I mean, I mentioned that letter that you wrote to Senator Dawes, but did you ever go in person to talk or testify before them? I wrote several letters. I did go to Washington, but I spent more time with my own delegation. Okay. And then we have our last question for today. What is the advice that you would have for young people today? If Ida B. Wells were alive, what do you think she would say to young people today? To read, educate yourselves, not only on your own people, but of the lights and experience of others. In addition, if you see any injustice, then you may write about it. Write to someone, write to your Congress. You can even write to your own parents. Put down all of your thoughts about injustice, not only injustices, not only for yourself, but those around you, not only of people in your race, but other races, not only of people in your age group, but those that are older and younger. So essentially to boil that down, you must read and write. That's fantastic advice. And I know as the students are heading, some students are back in school already, but many are heading back next week. And for many of them, it might be the first time they're back in in-person learning in a long time. And that's exciting. But I do hope that during this past year, year and a half that they have continued to read, because I think that is fantastic advice. Whether, you know, no matter whether you're reading about something that you're an assignment for school or on your own, I think that makes a huge, huge difference. So, well, thank you so very, very much. Unless you have any last words for us this morning, you know, we appreciate you joining us and telling us so much about your life and all the amazing things that you did and how you made such a difference in- Thank you, Ms. McNat. All right, well, thank you so much. And you all, you have a wonderful day. Don't forget to check out our DocsTeach activity for the program today. And I think you'll enjoy it and look up those documents that I mentioned on IW Wells, but just do a search in DocsTeach and you'll find lots of things. And feel free, we'd love to have you join us for our program in September when we are meeting James Madison on September 16th. So yeah, here is our activity for today's program. And really looking at how women of color fought for women's suffrage. So, you know, as Ms. Wells mentioned, the African-American women were asked to walk in the back, although Ms. Wells did not, and that was fantastic, but the pictures, most of the photographs we have in our holdings really are just showing the white women who are marching. So this is an activity that really looks at who is not in this photograph, who is not in this picture and why. And then in September, on the last slide, we have the program with James Madison and that is on September 16th and it's connecting to the Constitution. Constitution Day is Friday, September 17th. So this is a look at how the Constitution was written by James Madison. So thank you again for joining us today and hope to see you in September. And for all those students and teachers out there, I wish you a wonderful year.