Political Pioneer of the Press

Ida B. Wells-Barnett and Her Transnational Crusade for Social Justice

Edited by Lori Amber Roessner and Jodi L. Rightler-McDaniels - Foreword by Chandra D. Snell Clark - Contributions by Jodi L. Rightler-McDaniels; Lori Amber Roessner; Norma Fay Green; Joe Hayden; Jinx C. Broussard; Kris DuRocher; Patricia A. Schechter; R.J. Vogt; Chandra D. Snell Clark and Kathy Roberts Forde

Known most prominently as a daring anti-lynching crusader, Ida B. Wells-Barnett (1862-1931) worked tirelessly throughout her life as a political advocate for the rights of women, minorities, and members of the working class. Despite her significance, until the 1970s Wells-Barnett’s life, career, and legacy were relegated to the footnotes of history. Beginning with the posthumously published autobiography edited and released by her daughter Alfreda in 1970, a handful of biographers and historians—most notably, Patricia Schechter, Paula Giddings, Mia Bay, Gail Bederman, and Jinx Broussard—have begun to place the life of Wells-Barnett within the context of the social, cultural, and political milieu of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. This edited volume seeks to extend the discussions that they have cultivated over the last five decades and to provide insight into the communication strategies that the political advocate turned to throughout the course of her life as a social justice crusader. In particular, scholars such as Schechter, Broussard, and many more will weigh in on the full range of communication techniques—from lecture circuits and public relations campaigns to investigative and advocacy journalism—that Wells-Barnett employed to combat racism and sexism and to promote social equity; her dual career as a journalist and political agitator; her advocacy efforts on an international, national, and local level; her own failed political ambitions; her role as a bridge and interloper in key social movements of the nineteenth and twentieth century; her legacy in American culture; and her potential to serve as a prism through which to educate others on how to address lingering forms of oppression in the twenty-first century.

Lexington Books

Pages: 244 • Trim: 6¼ x 9⅜

978-1-4985-3032-3 • Hardback • July 2018 • $123.00 • (£95.00)

978-1-4985-3034-7 • Paperback • June 2020 • $47.99 • (£37.00)

978-1-4985-3033-0 • eBook • July 2018 • $45.50 • (£35.00)

Series: Women in American Political History

Subjects: Political Science / Women in Politics, History / United States / Civil War Period (1850-1877), Language Arts & Disciplines / Journalism, Political Science / Civil Rights, History / Women

Political Pioneer of the Press

Ida B. Wells-Barnett and Her Transnational Crusade for Social Justice

Hardback

Paperback

eBook

Summary

Known most prominently as a daring anti-lynching crusader, Ida B. Wells-Barnett (1862-1931) worked tirelessly throughout her life as a political advocate for the rights of women, minorities, and members of the working class. Despite her significance, until the 1970s Wells-Barnett’s life, career, and legacy were relegated to the footnotes of history. Beginning with the posthumously published autobiography edited and released by her daughter Alfreda in 1970, a handful of biographers and historians—most notably, Patricia Schechter, Paula Giddings, Mia Bay, Gail Bederman, and Jinx Broussard—have begun to place the life of Wells-Barnett within the context of the social, cultural, and political milieu of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. This edited volume seeks to extend the discussions that they have cultivated over the last five decades and to provide insight into the communication strategies that the political advocate turned to throughout the course of her life as a social justice crusader. In particular, scholars such as Schechter, Broussard, and many more will weigh in on the full range of communication techniques—from lecture circuits and public relations campaigns to investigative and advocacy journalism—that Wells-Barnett employed to combat racism and sexism and to promote social equity; her dual career as a journalist and political agitator; her advocacy efforts on an international, national, and local level; her own failed political ambitions; her role as a bridge and interloper in key social movements of the nineteenth and twentieth century; her legacy in American culture; and her potential to serve as a prism through which to educate others on how to address lingering forms of oppression in the twenty-first century.

Details

Lexington Books

Pages: 244 • Trim: 6¼ x 9⅜

978-1-4985-3032-3 • Hardback • July 2018 • $123.00 • (£95.00)

978-1-4985-3034-7 • Paperback • June 2020 • $47.99 • (£37.00)

978-1-4985-3033-0 • eBook • July 2018 • $45.50 • (£35.00)

Series: Women in American Political History

Subjects: Political Science / Women in Politics, History / United States / Civil War Period (1850-1877), Language Arts & Disciplines / Journalism, Political Science / Civil Rights, History / Women

Author

Lori Amber Roessner is associate professor at the University of Tennessee’s School of Journalism & Electronic Media.

Jodi Rightler-McDaniels is the senior general studies department chair and associate professor of communication at South College in Knoxville.

Table of Contents

Foreword: Ida & Me: A Call to Performance
Chandra D. Snell Clark

Introduction
Lori Amber Roessner & Jodi L. Rightler-McDaniels

Part I: Ida B. Wells & “The Strange Career” of a Political Pioneer of the Press: Communicating a Social Justice Crusade

Chapter 1: Training the Pen: Ida B. Wells’ Journalistic Efforts to Combat Emerging Jim-Crow Laws in Transportation
Norma Fay Green

Chapter 2: “A Hearing in the Press”: Ida B. Wells’ Lecture Tour of 1893-4
Joe Hayden

Chapter 3: Communicating an Anti-Lynching Crusade: The Voice, the Writings, and the Power of Ida B. Wells-Barnett’s Public Relations Campaign
Jinx Coleman Broussard

Chapter 4: “The Modern Joan [of] Arc”: Press Coverage of Ida B. Wells-Barnett’s Campaign for Woman’s Suffrage
Lori Amber Roessner

Chapter 5: The Life of a Political Agitator: Ida B. Wells-Barnett’s Transition from a National Activist to a Local Reformer
Kris DuRocher

Part II: Mightier than the Sword: Discourse on the Life & Legacy of Ida B. Wells-Barnett

Chapter 6: Constructing Monuments to the Memory of Ida B. Wells-Barnett: Institutionalization of Reputation, Memory Distortion, and Cultural Amnesia
Lori Amber Roessner

Chapter 7: Ida B. Wells and the Carceral State
Patricia A. Schechter

Chapter 8: Pioneering Advocacy Journalism: What Today’s Journalists Can Learn from Ida B. Wells-Barnett’s Methodology
R.J. Vogt

Chapter 9: What Would Ida Do? Considering the Relevancy of Ida B. Wells-Barnett’s Legacy to Journalism Students at an HBCU
Chandra D. Snell Clark

Afterword: Ida B. Wells-Barnett and the “Racist Coverup”
Kathy Roberts Forde

Appendix
Norma Fay Green

Reviews

This fine collection of essays sheds new light on Ida B. Wells as an activist, journalist, and leading public intellectual.
— Mia Bay, University of Pennsylvania

Political Pioneer of the Press: Ida B. Wells-Barnett and Her Transnational Crusade for Social Justice is an important work that takes the reader on a journey from first discovering that Ida B. Wells-Barnett existed, to being intrigued and almost haunted by the desire to learn about her, to uncovering one thing after another about her life and work. Examining her life from different angles is a very unique and compelling way to tell the story of my great-grandmother’s multi-faceted life, which embodies and chronicles the many changes and challenges that African Americans faced from the end of slavery until the Great Depression. The fact that the methodology she used in a wide variety of her work is being examined and appreciated today shows that her life and legacy will live on.
— Michelle Duster, Co-editor, Michelle Obama’s Impact on African American Women and Girls, author, speaker, educator, great-granddaughter of Ida B. Wells-Barnett