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he was an awesome ancestor, one of contemporary conversations. In fact, she made S those whose name we will always honor, a major contribution to Africana whose praise poems we will always write and which is clear in her commitment to self- recite, and whose life is a book of lessons we definition, ethical grounding, male/female will always read with reverence and pass on as partnership in equality, family, community a legacy of the highest value. Ida B. Wells- and social action. It is obvious also in her Barnett (July 15, 1862 – March 25, 1931) was refusal to place in conflict the liberation of born during the Holocaust of enslavement and Black people and the liberation of Black became orphaned at the age of sixteen when women. Indeed, she insisted on joining the her and father died in a yellow fever two in a total liberation of all, as exemplified epidemic. Resisting the separation and in her work with her husband and partner in parceling out of her sisters and brothers, she struggle, Ferdinand Barnett. decided, against all odds and advice, to quit Embodying the self-defining womanist, school, get a job and take care of them. It was she asked in an article on the mission and a sign of the commitment, courage and will meaning of women, “What is or should be that would carry her through and beyond the ?” And she answered: “Not merely a many difficulties and fierce opposition she bundle of flesh and bones, nor a fashion plate, would face. And she rose in the ranks of a frivolous inanity, a boundless doll, a African American leadership through an heartless coquette – but a strong, bright extraordinary combination of intellect, presence, thoroughly imbued with a sense of strategic planning, insightful writing, hard her mission on earth and a desire to fill it; an work in critical areas, audacious self-assertion, earnest, soulful being, laboring to fit herself admirable resiliency and an iron and resistant for life‟s duties and burdens, and bearing them will. faithfully when they come; but a womanly Certainly, she lived in a critical period in woman for all that …” Black history, the reversal of Reconstruction It is this stance as an aware, socially and the rise of Jim Crow, Caveman Charlie active, self-assertive, and “womanly woman,” and “Beast-Lady Lynch,” savage White willingly bearing the burdens and obligations terrorism and the brutal burning of Black at hand, that was a source of the inner strength towns, and racist mob murder as a way of life. that gave her courage to struggle for both It is her work in the muck and mire of this racial and gender justice. These struggles were racist South and compliant North that Ida B. pursued in her work as an organizer, Wells came into her own and taught us institution-builder, anti-lynching, civil rights audacious African ways to walk, work, and human rights advocate and in her struggle and stand tall in the world. collaborating with other leaders whose names Wells-Barnett was a tireless journalist, we know and also honor – Douglass, DuBois, organizer, lecturer, teacher and activist in Garvey, Bethune, Terrell, Randolph. numerous organizations and had collaborated Wells-Barnett was a “race woman,” with the major leaders of her time. Her ideas uncompromisingly committed to the freedom foreshadowed and prefigured womanist, Black and well-being of her people. Like Marcus Power, armed self-defense, civil and human Garvey, whom she admired and who admired rights, and related discourse in our her, she was for “race first.” She argued there IDA B. WELLS: TROUBLING AND TRANSFORMING THE WATERS Los Angeles Sentinel, 07-22-10, p.A7 DR. MAULANA KARENGA

was no substitute for unity, self-help, self- speaking internationally. Her anti-lynching reliance, and constant struggle. And she lectures and writings were vital witness stressed strong community institutions, the against this brutal and barbaric practice. She essentiality of education and economic defined lynching as a “national crime,” “a strength, constant vigilance and ceaseless color-line murder,” and “the cold-blooded struggle. savagery of White devils under lynch law.” In an article, “Freedom of Political Also, Wells-Barnett raised the issue of Action,” she criticized for armed self-defense and argued that in other being too tied to one party or the other without places lynching had been prevented by this critical assessment. Prefiguring a similar strategy. She stated that “The lesson this position of , she declared she was teaches and which every Afro-American neither a Democrat nor Republican, but an should ponder well is that a Winchester rifle African American seeking justice and freedom should have a place of honor in every Black for her people. home, and it should be used for that protection Wells-Barnett also argued against which the law refuses to give.” Thus, long uncritical allegiance to leaders and for critical before Robert Williams and Malcolm X had assessment of leadership in terms of how it argued the right to armed self-defense against furthered the objective desired above all murderous mobs in face of the failure of law, others: “the well-being of (Black people) as a Wells-Barnett had raised the option publicly. race, morally, socially and intellectually.” And Ida B. Wells-Barnett was a towering in another article on “Functions of woman and leader of her time, an Leadership,” she asked of leaders “how many extraordinary person which, as her Memphis of them are exerting their talents and wealth Diary shows, was self-questioning, self- for the benefit or amelioration of the critical and caught up also in the ordinariness conditions of the masses?” Moreover, she of life and living. And yet, she had a historic asked “What material benefit is a „leader‟, if sense of herself and the moral meaning of the he does not, to some extent, devote his time, freedom struggle of her people. Her talent and wealth to the alleviation of the commitment, she said, was to constantly poverty, and misery and elevation of his trouble the waters and transform the status people?” quo. Indeed, an oppressor has no right to It is Ida B. Wells-Barnett‟s courageous, peace, if he dares to deny a people‟s right to constant and uncompromising struggle against freedom and justice. And when we are lynching which brought forth the best of her attacked by the oppressor in our fight for virtues and values, and reaffirmed her role as a freedom and justice, we are to remember her leader of great merit and meaning. Clearly, defiant words of wisdom: “with me it is not she played a crucial and vanguard role in myself nor my reputation, but the life of my exposing the racist terrorism and savagery of people which is at stake.” lynching, traveling widely in the U.S. and

Dr. Maulana Karenga, Professor of Africana Studies, California State University-Long Beach, Chair of The Organization Us, Creator of , and author of Kawaida and Questions of Life and Struggle. [www.MaulanaKarenga.org; www.Us-Organization.org and ww.OfficialKwanzaaWebsite.org]