Ida B. Wells
Anti-lynching crusader Ida B. Wells was a former Memphis schoolteacher and journalist. In 1892, as co-owner of the Memphis newspaper Free Speech, Wells exposed the lies regarding the lynching of the three African American men. She urged her readers to boycott white businesses, and even to leave town, prompting an exodus that had a lasting economic impact on the city of Memphis. In addition, she used her newspaper to correct the record and challenge the rape/lynching narrative. After a white mob retaliated, by destroying her press and forcing her into exile in the North, she launched a series of meticulously documented speeches and pamphlets, including Southern Horrors: Lynch Law in All Its Phases (1892) and, as Ida B. Wells-Barnett (following her marriage to journalist Ferdinand Barnett) A Red Record (1895).