Prometheus 6   

IDA B. WELLS

IDA B. WELLS was selected as African American News & Issues� inaugural Fiesta�s Black History 24-7-365 �Mother of The Year,� due to the fact she was, indeed, the matriarch of Black Newspapers. In fact, one of the Texas Black United Fund�s most prestigious acknowledgments is the Ida B. Wells: �Tell It Like It Is� Award, which recognizes uncompromised African-American newspapers (AAN&I received the award in 2001 and 2002) that objectively report all news, without fear or favor.

Just who was this courageous and outspoken little snip of Black woman who dared speak out against lynching in the Deep South during the antebellum era? Wells, born in May of 1862, in Holly Springs, Mississippi, always noted that she came into the world (18 months before the signing of the Emancipation Proclamation) and was the oldest of eight children. Although enslaved prior to the Civil War, her parents were able to support their seven children because her mother was a �famous cook� and her father was a skilled carpenter. When Ida was only 14, a tragic epidemic of Yellow Fever swept through Holly Springs and killed her parents and youngest sibling. Emblematic of the righteousness, responsibility and fortitude that characterized her life, she kept the family together by securing a teaching job.