Ida B. the Queen: The Extraordinary Life and Legacy of Ida B. Wells
By Michelle Duster
Ida B. Wells, born into slavery in Mississippi, orphaned at 16 by the yellow fever, kept her family together. When railroad conductors enforcing Jim Crow laws threw her off a train for which she had bought first class tickets to commute to her teaching job in Tennessee, she sued – and that was unheard of in the day. When a friend was lynched for having the effrontery to open a prosperous grocery store for his black neighborhood, she became a leading journalist She went on to cofound the NAACP. Several books have been written about her. This particular one is written by her great-granddaughter. It is a warm remembrance. It is also a succinct story with side bars about other important people of her day and in her life. Do read this book for a solid introduction to a moving force in US journalism
Submitted by Beth Bartholomew