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Yours for Justice, Ida B. Wells: The Daring Life of a Crusading Journalist
Philip Dray

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Ida B. Wells was only two years old when the Emancipation Proclamation of 1863 freed her and her family from slavery. Yet even after the Civil War, she faced many challenges and obstacles before becoming the famous journalist that history remembers.

Ida loved America’s promise of “freedom and justice for all,” but the Jim Crow laws of her time hindered her at every step on her road to adulthood. After her parents died, she raised her

remaining siblings by herself, determined to help them live fulfilling lives in spite of racism and unfair laws. She taught them all by herself, too, and used her teaching skills throughout her life.

When her best friend was lynched by a mob, Ida turned to the press and became a journalist intent on exposing southern racism and shedding the light of truth on commonly accepted beliefs.