Ida B. Wells: A Passion for Justice

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Ida B. Wells: A Passion for Justice is a documentary movie containing documents of the dramatic life and turbulent times of the pioneering African American journalist, activist, suffragist, and anti-lynching crusader of the post-Reconstruction period. At the time of the film’s initial release on The American Experience in late December 1989, Wells had been virtually forgotten, her autobiography long out of print. However, Wells was a household name in Black America during much of her lifetime (1863-1931) and was considered the equal of such well-known contemporary African American leaders as Booker T. Washington and W.E.B. DuBois. [1]

Summary of The Documentary

Wells, who was born enslaved in 1862, a year before emancipation, started her career as a schoolteacher. In Memphis, in 1887, outraged by an unsuccessful court battle protesting her removal from a train car on the basis of race, she became a journalist and activist whose work proved vastly influential, even internationally. With investigative rigor and insightful political strategizing, she publicized and challenged the horrors of lynchings, defended the civil rights of Black people, and resisted the erasure of Black American history. Greaves depicts Wells’s life and work fervently, joining excerpts from Wells’s memoirs (read on camera by Toni Morrison), interviews with scholars (including Paula Giddings and Troy Duster, Wells’s grandson), and his own written narration (spoken by Al Freeman, Jr.) with teeming visual documentation. [2]

Black Empowerment

This documentary shares the story where Wells as the co-owner of two newspapers, wrote about racial segregation and inequality, documenting lynchings in the late 1800s.She moved from Memphis to Chicago after her newspaper was burned to the ground, married and had a family and led boycotts on behalf of African Americans and women. She traveled extensively delivering lectures. [3]

New York Times Reviewed this documentary by saying "Tells of the brave life and works of the 19th century journalist, known among Black reporters as 'the princess of the press,' who led the nation's first anti-lynching campaign." This documentary is also reviewed by Chicago Sun-Times, "A powerful account of the life of one of the earliest heroes in the Civil Rights Movement...The historical record of her achievements remains relatively modest. This documentary goes a long way towards rectifying that egregious oversight." [4]

Controversy

This documentary also showed some scenes that contained black racism, such as segregation and black martyrs. In minutes 02.35, segregation showed where the oppressive climate radicalized Wells. She refused to give up her seat on a segregated train and sued the railroad after it ejected her. She won $500, but the judgment was overturned. Also, black Martyrs shows in minutes 02.56, where when Wells initially supported black participation in WWI. 50 black soldiers who fought in a racial uprising were executed or jailed. The Secret Service threatened Wells with treason. [5]

References