Ida B. Wells and the Light of Truth

By Brian J. Martin
January 2, 2025

Journalist. Suffragist. Civil rights activist. No single word or phrase can define the courageous and purposeful life of Ida B. Wells. Despite facing serious obstacles of poverty, slavery, and prejudice, Wells never tired in the pursuit of justice. She dedicated her life to fighting for equal rights, and fight she did. Her weapons were words, as she waged a fierce battle for the hearts and minds of a country that had been torn apart and delicately stitched back together after a bloody Civil War.

The profound legacy of Ida B. Wells is more than just her story, though. It is a necessary part of the very journey of America itself. That is why the United States Mint is proud to honor this selfless hero with the first American Women’s Quarter of 2025.

Ida was born on July 16, 1862, the first of eight children to James and Elizabeth Wells. Like all Black Americans in Mississippi at that time, however, she was not born free.

Dreaming of a better life and a better future, Wells’s parents taught her the importance of education, a lesson she would carry with her throughout her life. Once the Civil War ended, Wells’s father became politically active in Reconstruction Era politics while Ida went off to school.

Wells attended Rust College but was expelled for arguing with the university president. In 1878, both her parents and her younger brother died of Yellow Fever. In an effort to support her family, Wells taught school in rural Mississippi and eventually moved with her siblings to find work in Memphis, Tennessee.

At the age of 22, Wells’s activism began to take shape. She sued a railway company after being forcibly removed from a train when she refused to move to the “colored car” from the first-class train, for which she had a ticket. Wells won the suit initially, but the decision was later reversed by the Tennessee Supreme Court.

“The way to right wrongs is to turn the light of truth upon them,” Wells once said. And she soon used her powerful voice to do just that.

While still in her twenties, Wells became part-owner of the newspaper Memphis Free Speech and Headlight and became a prolific writer. In May 1892, in response to Wells’s article about lynching, a mob destroyed her printing press and drove her from the city. After a few months, she relocated to Chicago.

Ida B. Wells married lawyer Ferdinand Barnett in 1895, and the couple would go on to have four children. Despite the challenges of raising young children, though, Wells did not leave her work behind and continued to report on Southern lynchings.

While investigating, she occasionally went to the site of a killing, despite extreme danger. In 1895, she published the groundbreaking A Red Record, the first documented statistical report on lynching.

In 1896, Wells co-founded the National Association of Colored Women’s Club (NACWC) to address issues affecting Black women.

After a race riot broke out in Springfield, Illinois, she joined other civil rights leaders in 1909 to form the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP). Although her name was not initially included on the list of founders, the NAACP today recognizes Ida B. Wells as a founding member.

Wells worked tirelessly throughout her life to raise money for the causes she believed in and encourage political participation. She met two presidents, made friends with many famous writers and activists, and even ran for a seat in the Illinois state senate.

She also traveled in Europe, shedding light on lynching to an international audience. While there, she openly confronted white women suffrage leaders who refused to use their large platforms to denounce the difficult realities that Black people faced.

After a long and active life, Ida B. Wells died of kidney disease on March 25, 1931, in Chicago. What she left behind was not just a legacy of words on a page, however. She helped lay a foundation—along with fellow trailblazers Frederick Douglass, W.E.B. Debois, Mary Church Terrell, and others—on which to build a more equal American dream.

The Ida B. Wells Quarter is the 16th coin in the American Women Quarters™ Program (AWQ), and the first quarter of 2025. It released into circulation on Thursday, January 2, 2025. The public can purchase bags and rolls of the quarter beginning February 4, 2025.

The reverse (tails) features Wells as she gazes courageously and proudly towards the future. Inscriptions are “UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,” “E PLURIBUS UNUM,” “IDA B. WELLS,” “25 CENTS,” “JOURNALIST, SUFFRAGIST, CIVIL RIGHTS ACTIVIST.”

The obverse (heads) depicts a portrait of George Washington, originally designed and sculpted by Laura Gardin Fraser to mark his 200th birthday in 1932. Inscriptions are “LIBERTY,” “IN GOD WE TRUST,” and “2025.”

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