PROGRESSIVE ERA
Crusader
for Justice
When three friends were murdered in
1892, journalist and early civil rights
activist Ida B. Wells uncovered the truth
Barrett, the white owner of a Memphis
grocery store
Thomas Moss
co-owners of the
Calvin McDowell
People’s Grocery
Henry Stewart
Mob, a group of white people
Ida B. Wells, a journalist, newspaper
owner, and early civil rights leader
Frederick Douglass, an escaped slave
who became an abolitionist, a writer,
an orator, and a statesman
Narrators A-E
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All of the characters were real people. The
dialogue is based on actual events and
writings but was edited for space and clarity.
WORDS TO KNOW
• boycott (v): to refuse, as an act
of protest, to buy products or use
services
• lynching (n): murder by a lawless
mob, usually for an unproven crime
• 13th Amendment (n): the 1865
Constitutional amendment
that abolished slavery, stating,
“Neither slavery nor involuntary
servitude, except as a punishment
for crime whereof the party shall
have been duly convicted, shall
exist within the United States. . . .”
• yellow fever (n): an infectious
disease spread by mosquitoes
JUNIOR SCHOLASTIC
PROLOGUE
Narrator A: In 1862, Ida Bell Wells
was born a slave in Holly Springs,
Mississippi. Ida’s parents were
illiterate. Slaves risked being beaten
or killed for trying to learn to read.
Narrator B: The Civil War ended in
April 1865. That December, the
13th Amendment to the Constitu­
tion outlawed slavery. Ida’s parents
soon enrolled her and her siblings
in a school for black children. Ida
quickly learned to read.
SCENE 1
Narrator C: When Ida is 16, her
parents die of yellow fever. She
takes a teaching job to help support
her younger brothers and sisters.
But Ida yearns to be a journalist, to
speak out against the brutality that
blacks face in the South.
Narrator D: In 1889, she becomes
the editor and part-owner of Free
Speech, a newspaper for blacks in
Memphis, Tennessee.
Narrator E: Three years later, an
event shakes her to her core.
Narrator A: One Saturday after­
noon, Wells’s friend Thomas Moss
is walking to the People’s Grocery,
a store that he co-owns in a black
neighborhood outside Memphis.
The white owner of a nearby shop
approaches him.
Barrett: We need only one grocery
store around here, and it’s mine.
You’re stealing my customers, and
you’re going to regret it.
Narrator B: Moss meets with his coowners to tell them what happened.
Thomas Moss: How do we prevent
a lynching, Cal?
Calvin McDowell: The police won’t
protect us. We need everyone in
the neighborhood to help us.
Henry Stewart: Why can’t whites
leave us alone? They’re just angry
that we’ve got customers.
Narrator C: That night, shots ring
out in the back of the men’s store. A
IDA B. WELLS PAPERS/UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO
CHARACTERS
LYNCHING, 1882-1968
4,742
Estimated number of people
lynched in the U.S. Of these,
3,445 were black.
200
Number of anti-lynching bills
the U.S. Senate failed to act
on during this time.
79
Percent of lynchings that took
place in the South. Mississippi
had the most—581.
Lynchings continued
into the 1960s.
In this 1939 photo,
a member of the
Ku Klux Klan tries to
intimidate AfricanAmericans in Florida.
SOURCES: ABC News, Archives at the Tuskegee Institute
Ida B. Wells, left,
with the widow
of Thomas Moss
and her children
scuffle between black men guarding
the store and white intruders leaves
three white men hurt.
Narrator D: All of the black men,
including Moss and his co-owners,
are arrested and thrown in jail.
Mob: Lynch them! Lynch them!
SCENE 2
IMAGNO/GETTY IMAGES
Narrator E: A few days later, a
white mob breaks into the jail and
drags the three shopkeepers away.
Moss: Don’t kill me! I have a little
girl at home and a baby on the way.
Barrett: You’re out of line!
Mob: Kill him! Lynch him!
Narrator A: McDowell grabs a gun
from one of the lynchers but can’t
protect himself. The mob shoots off
his fingers and gouges out his eyes.
Moss, horrified, knows he is next.
Moss (to the crowd): Tell my family
to go West. There’s no justice here!
Narrator B: The mob shoots the
three shopkeepers to death.
Narrator C: When Wells learns of
the lynching, she writes about it for
Free Speech, urging blacks to protest.
Ida B. Wells (writing): We must
leave this town. It won’t protect us
or give us fair trials in the courts, but
instead murders us in cold blood.
Narrator D: Within months, 6,000
of the 30,000 black residents of
Memphis move away, some walking
500 miles to neighboring Oklahoma.
Narrator E: Wells writes that
blacks who stayed in town should
­boycott white-owned businesses.
Wells (writing): We’ve learned that
every prominent white man in
Memphis supported the lynching.
They don’t deserve our money.
Narrator A: Enraged by the
articles Wells is writing, a white
mob ransacks her newspaper
office and sets it on fire.
Narrator B: But Wells will not be
silenced. She writes about the
hundreds of blacks across the South
being lynched each year.
Wells (writing): Consider the case
of Sam Holt, a Georgia man who
was murdered before a mob of
2,000. His ears and fingers were
severed. His body was cut to
pieces, the bones sold as souvenirs.
Narrator C: Wells’s reporting earns
the admiration of the brilliant ­orator
and ex-slave Frederick Douglass.
Frederick Douglass (in a letter to
Wells): If the American conscience
were half-alive, a scream of horror
would rise to heaven wherever your
work is read.
EPILOGUE
Narrator D: Wells continued her
anti-lynching campaign, and her
reporting was recognized world­
wide. She went on to champion
other civil rights causes for blacks
and women. She died in 1931
at age 68.
—Suzanne McCabe
JUNIOR SCHOLASTIC
AMERICAN HISTORY/PROGRESSIVE ERA
Crusader for Justice Lexile score: 750L
•W
ells wrote about many injustices that
African-Americans endured, including
harassment, disenfranchisement, and a lack
of educational opportunities.
n WRITING PROMPT
n COMMON CORE QUESTIONS
•W
hy did whites in the South feel threatened
economically by freed slaves after the Civil
War? (RI 6.2)
• What measures did Ida B. Wells take to try to
end the practice of lynching? (RH 2)
“One had better die fighting against injustice,
than die like a dog or a rat in a trap,” Wells
wrote. Write a brief essay describing why Wells
believed that risking one’s life to right wrongs
was better than doing nothing.
n DEBATE TOPIC
Wells wrote: “The appeal to the white man’s
pocket has ever been more effectual than all
the appeals ever made to his conscience.” Do
you agree or disagree? Explain.
n FAST FACTS
•T
he oldest of eight children, Ida B. Wells
was born on July 16, 1862, in Holly
Springs, Mississippi. Her ­parents, who had
been slaves, believed in the importance
of education. From a young age, Ida read
newspaper accounts aloud to her father
and his friends about violence by whites
against blacks.
• When Ida was 16, her parents and a younger
brother succumbed to yellow fever. Ida
became a teacher to help support her five
­surviving brothers and sisters.
n EXTEND THE LESSON
Ida B. Wells also worked to improve education
for black children, fought for women’s suffrage,
and helped organize African-Americans to gain
equality. Use the library or Internet to further
research Wells and her contributions.
WEB LINKS
• The Ida B. Wells Memorial Foundation:
idabwells.org
• Jim Crow stories:
pbs.org/wnet/jimcrow/stories_people_wells.html
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TEACHER’S GUIDE • JUNIOR SCHOLASTIC
NAME: __________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
STRATEGIC READING ®
RI 6.1
Use this work sheet with the “Crusader for Justice” play.
Play title: ________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
1. What is the theme (main focus or idea) of this play? ________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
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2.Where and when did the play’s events take place? ___________________________________________________________________________________________________________
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3. (a) Which character or characters were real people? _______________________________________________________________________________________________________
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(b) Why were they important? ____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
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4. Summarize the action or events in the play. ______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
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5. (a) What was the cause of the main event or key incident in the play? __________________________________________________________________________
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(b) What was the effect? _____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
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Bonus: Imagine that you’re a reporter who just witnessed a key event or scene in the play. Using your
answers above as background notes, write a brief news article about that event. Remember to include
the five key elements of every good news report: who, what, when, where, and why.
TEACHER’S GUIDE • JUNIOR SCHOLASTIC
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WHAT’S THE STORY?