Ida: A Sword Among Lions

Pulitzer Prize Board citation to Ida B. Wells, as an early pioneer of investigative journalism and civil rights icon

From a thinker who Maya Angelou has praised for shining "a brilliant light on the lives of women left in the shadow of history," comes the definitive biography of Ida B. Wells—an essential work of African American history about the crusading journalist and pioneer in the fight for women’s suffrage and against segregation and lynchings.

Born into slavery in the tumultuous Post-Reconstruction era and raised in the Victorian age, Ida B. Wells emerged—through her fierce political battles and progressive thinking—as the first "modern" black woman in the nation’s history.

Wells began her activist career when she tried to desegregate a first-class railway car in Memphis. After being thrown bodily off the car, she wrote about the incident for black Baptist newspapers, thus beginning her career as a journalist. But her most abiding fight would be her groundbreaking anti-lynching campaign, a crime in which she saw all the themes she held most dear coalesce: sexuality, race, and the law.

This definitive biography of a foundational African American leader reveals:
From Slavery to Activism: The astonishing journey of a woman born into slavery in Holly Springs who, after being violently ejected from a first-class train car, became a fearless journalist and activist.The Fight for Social Justice: An unflinching look at Wells’s pioneering battle against segregation and her instrumental role in the women’s suffrage movement.A Founder of the NAACP: Discover her role as a founding member of the NAACP and her fierce, lifelong crusade to expose the brutal reality of lynching in post-Reconstruction America.An Uncompromising Voice: How Wells challenged the dominant narratives about race, sexuality, and the law, emerging as the first "modern" Black woman in the nation’s history.