(1862–1931), U.S. journalist and civil rights advocate. Ida Bell Wells was born on July 16, 1862, in Holly Springs, Miss. The daughter of slaves, she was educated at Rust College, a freedmen's school in Holly Springs, and later attended Fisk University for several summer sessions. She brought a lawsuit in Tennessee against a railroad that tried to force her to leave a “whites-only” car. Although she eventually lost the case, she continued to be a militant defender of black civil rights. She bought an interest in the Memphis Free Speech newspaper in 1891 and wrote articles denouncing the lynchings of African Americans. She later moved to Chicago, Ill., where she became active in organizing local black women in causes ranging from antilynching campaigns to the suffrage movement. She married Ferdinand Barnett, a fellow champion of black civil rights, in 1895. In 1910 she founded and became president of the Negro Fellowship League.