SOURCE: Townes, Emilie Maureen. “Ida B. Wells-Barnett: Her Social and Moral Perspectives.” In Womanist Justice, Womanist Hope, pp. 107-30. Atlanta, Ga.: Scholars Press, 1993.

In the following full-length study of the ways Wells-Barnett's life typified the experience of African-American women reformers of her day, Townes examines the social and moral content of Wells-Barnett's writings.

Ida B. Wells-Barnett was an active participant in the women's club movement and other programs for social changes of her time. Her deep and abiding spirituality was forged in the Black Church of the South. Her rebellion against the traditional roles assigned to women emerged in her career as activist and newspaper journalist. She bowed to societal conventions surrounding domesticity and took time away from the socio-political world to raise her children, returning to her work as quickly as time and circumstance allowed. Her concern for decent jobs and wages for African-Americans found voice and...