aug 20, 1893 - Ida B Wells Publishes “The Reason Why”

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Here is a backstory of Ida B Wells (later Wells-Barnett.)
Ida B Wells was born into slavery in Mississippi when she moved to Memphis at age 20. After a brief stint of teaching at a segregated school, Wells started doing journalism and wrote about the horror of the many injustices suffered by black people. Wells was part owner of the “Memphis Free Speech and Headlight,” and found a receptive audience among the black community. White editors like Edward Ward Carmack made a bunch of threats toward Wells through his paper, the “Memphis Commerical.” In 1892 three black successful Memphis businessmen were lynched. One of which was named Thomas Ross who was a close friend of Ida B Wells. In response, Wells wrote a lot in her paper including Moss’ dying plea for black people to abandon Memphis and move west. Carmack was very angry about Wells's coverage of the murders and encouraged retaliation against “the black wench,” The offices of the Memphis Free Speech were destroyed. Wells was out of town and did not return to the South for thirty years.

This brought Wells to Chicago where she turned her attention to the 1893 World Fair. In the months leading up to the opening of the exposition, Wells petitioned the committee to include a pavilion showcasing the achievements of African Americans, as well as discriminatory hiring practices, which denied many qualified African Americans well-paid jobs. To appease Wells as well as Frederick Douglass, Irvine Garland Penn, and Well’s future husband Ferdinand Lee Barnett, the Exposition managers made August 25, 1893, “Colored American Day.” In response to everything that had happened, Wells edited a pamphlet called “The Reason Why: The Colored American Is Not in the World’s Columbian Exposition,” which was published on August 30, 1893. The essay had contributions from many important people and talked about the accomplishments of African Americans and the horrors of lynching. There were 10,000 copies distributed and Wells started to gain attention internationally, and by the start of the twentieth century, she would be recognized as one the most impactful anti-lynching activists

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