Teaching Tolerance middle grades activity www.teachingtolerance.org K 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12

Before Rosa Parks: Ida B. Wells Goals (Language Arts and U.S. History topics) • Students will consider the strategies Ida B. Wells deployed to raise awareness of social problems • Students will weigh the effectiveness of nonconformity to address a specific audience • Students will use Wells' story to write about a personal experience of conformity or non-conformity • Students will understand some of the economic and social problems facing the South after the Civil War

Rationale Many people consider the 1950s the beginning of the Civil Rights Movement, creating a void between the abolition of slavery and Brown v. Board of Education. After the Emancipation Proclamation, however, abolitionists continued their activities to pass the 14th and 15th amendments to the constitution. During Reconstruction and well into the 20th century, black and white activists worked together to gain equality for blacks and women.

TheH BO filmIron Jawed Angels features two short scenes that introduce a black feminist to the picture. This woman, who demanded the right to march with white suffragists and refused to go to the back of the parade to march separately, was Ida B. Wells.

Coincidentally, Ida B. Wells spent much of her life in the South and struggled with segregation on public transportation, which makes a brief glance at her life and work an interesting precursor to thinking about Rosa Parks’ experience with Alabama public transportation almost 100 years later.

You can read more about Wells from her diary, from which her daughter’s reflections are excerpted below.R ead The Memphis Diary of Ida B. Wells (Ed. Miriam De Costa-Willis, Beacon Press, 1995).

Process • Explain to students that they are going to read some information about Ida B. Wells, a non-conformist. • Distribute the handout, asking for a volunteer to read the brief biographical description of Wells. • Ask students what they know about the italicized vocabulary: Ku Klux Klan, Jim Crow laws, “separate but equal,” anti-lynching campaign, woman suffrage and non-conformist.C larify terms if necessary; see Glossary Handout. • Ask students to complete the independent writing assignment about non-conformist behavior. This activity meets curriculum standards in Language Arts and U.S. History as outlined by Content Knowledge: A Compendium of Standards and Benchmarks for K-12 Education, 4th Edition (www.mcrel.org/standards- benchmarks). Teaching Tolerance middle grades handout www.teachingtolerance.org Before Rosa Parks: Ida B. Wells Discussion Handout

Ida B. Wells was born a slave in 1862 in Holly Springs, Miss. Because of the Civil War, her family was soon free. Her parents were politically active in the community and she sometimes feared that the Ku Klux Klan would kill her father when he went to community meetings at night.

When Wells was 16, her parents died suddenly from yellow fever. She was left alone to support and care for her five younger siblings.

Fortunately, Wells’ parents had made sure she got the best education possible. She left school before graduation, made herself look older by putting up her hair, passed the teaching exam in her county and got a job teaching six miles from her family home. A friend of her mother’s took care of the children while Wells fulfilled her teaching duties, and Wells spent her teenage weekends raising her younger brothers and sisters.

When she was 22, Wells got a better teaching job in Memphis. She boarded a first-class “ladies” car on the train to go to her job. Two conductors tried to remove her to the smoking car because, by 1884, southern states were passing Jim Crow laws. Wells refused to go sit with drunken, rowdy men in the smoking car. When the conductors tried to drag her, she disembarked from the train and filed a lawsuit against theC hesapeake, Ohio and Southwestern Railroad Co. and won. Three years later, the Tennessee Supreme Court overturned Wells’ victory, claiming that the railroad cars were “separate but equal.”

Wells became a journalist devoted to writing about injustice. Two of her most famous campaigns were the anti-lynching campaign and the struggle for woman suffrage. Because she spoke out and refused to follow rules she believed were unjust, Wells was a non-conformist.

Some reflections aboutI da B. Wells from her daughter, Alfreda Duster, from The Memphis Diary of Ida B. Wells:

Even when there was no segregation in Chicago, there were certain places you didn’t go because you knew they wouldn’t treat you right. After discrimination intensified, Mother went to Marshall Fields department store. She waited and waited, but no clerk would help her. Finally, she took a pair of men’s underpants, put them over her arm, and walked toward the door. Immediately, a floorwalker stopped her, and so she was able to buy them.

She used to tell about this as a funny incident, Ida Wells-Barnett with a pair of underpants dangling over her arm. She was only five feet three or four, and she had grown plump in her fifties, but she walked as if she owned the world.

Pre-writing Questions for Reflection 1. What problem do you think Wells was trying to address? Why did she choose this strategy to gain the shop clerks’ attention? 2. What kind of silent statement was Wells making about the way the shop clerks were treating her? If you could translate the gesture into a sentence, what would the sentence say? 3. How do you think the shop clerks felt to see an angry customer marching toward the door “with a pair of underpants dangling over her arm”? Why? 4. Do you think Wells had a sense of humor? Why or why not? 5. How was Wells acting like a non-conformist? How would a conformist have acted? 6. Non-conformity takes courage and sometimes results in ostracism. Why do you think Wells “walked as if she owned the world”? Teaching Tolerance middle grades handout www.teachingtolerance.org Before Rosa Parks: Ida B. Wells Essay Handout Reflections on Non-conformity Think about a time when you didn’t conform to what your friends, family or classmates were doing. You may have stood aside and not taken a turn to do something dangerous or unkind. You may have expressed an opinion different from the majority. You may have chosen to defend someone verbally — a classmate, a musician or movie you like, or a style of dress. (If you can’t think of a non-conformist example, think of a time you wanted to be a non-conformist but chose not to.) Write an essay that describes the situation and explores the following:

1. What made you choose not to conform? 2. How important was the cause, person, or reason for which you chose to be different or disagree with the majority? 3. Were there bad feelings or consequences associated with your decision? Describe. 4. Were there good feelings or rewards, either with or without the bad? 5. Would you do it again? Why or why not? 6. What, if anything, would you have done differently? Teaching Tolerance glossary handout www.teachingtolerance.org Before Rosa Parks: Ida B. Wells Glossary

Ku Klux Klan — a white supremacist organization formed shortly after the Civil War. The Klan’s main activity in the late 19th and early 20th century was to terrorize blacks who challenged white supremacy. Jim Crow laws — a series of laws passed in the South after the Civil War to enforce segregation. “Separate but equal” — because the 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution demanded equal protection under the law for all citizens, communities and businesses committed to racial segregation used the logic that the races could be kept separate as long as they had similar accommodations. Anti-lynching campaign — activism to stop the Klan and other vigilante groups from illegally taking custody of and committing violent acts upon people they suspected of some infraction of the law or resented because they defied white supremacy. Woman suffrage — the movement, consolidated in the 1860s, to demand a constitutional amendment granting women the vote. Non-conformist — a person who defies social norms and customs.