Pulitzer Prize Board citation to Ida B. Wells, as an early pioneer of investigative journalism and civil rights icon

From a thinker who Maya Angelou has praised for shining "a brilliant light on the lives of women left in the shadow of history," comes the definitive biography of Ida B. Wells--crusading journalist and pioneer in the fight for women's suffrage and against segregation and lynchings

Ida B. Wells was born into slavery and raised in the Victorian age yet emerged--through her fierce political battles and progressive thinking--as the first "modern" black women in the nation's history.

Wells began her activist career when she tried to segregate a first-class railway car in Memphis. After being thrown bodily off the car, she wrote about the incident for black Baptist newspapers, thus beginning her career as a journalist. But her most abiding fight would be the one against lynching, a crime in which she saw all the themes she held most dear coalesce: sexuality, race, and the law.

--Vogue

Binding Type: Paperback
Publisher: Amistad Press
Published: 03/03/2009
ISBN: 9780060797362
Pages: 800
Weight: 1.40lbs
Size: 8.00h x 5.32w x 1.47d
Award: Hurston/Wright LEGACY Award - Finalist

Review Citations: New York Times Book Review 04/05/2009 pg. 20