Ida: A Sword Among Lions: Ida B. Wells and the Campaign Against Lynching

Paula J. Giddings

Harper Collins, Oct 6, 2009 - Social Science - 832 pages

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.

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IDA: A SWORD AMONG LIONS: Ida B. Wells and the Campaign Against Lynching

User Review  - Kirkus

Massive biography of an important yet little-known figure in American civil-rights history.Giddings (In Search of Sisterhood: Delta Sigma Theta and the Challenge of the Black Sorority Movement, 1988 ...

Ida: a sword among lions: Ida B. Wells and the campaign against lynching

User Review  - Not Available - Book Verdict

Giddings (Afro-American studies, Smith Coll.; When and Where I Enter) has written a massive study of this noted black activist's lifelong crusade against lynching. Prodigious research took Giddings to ...

Contents

• Prologue: 9
• Chapter One Holly Springs: 15
• Chapter Two The New City and the Ladies Car: 40
• Chapter Three A Breath of Life A Winter of Discontent: 69
• Chapter Four Love and Trouble: 98
• Chapter Seven Exodus: 188
• Chapter Eight The Truth About Lynching: 211
• Chapter Nine The Loveliest Lynchee Was Our Lord: 230
• Chapter Eleven St Joan and Old Man Eloquent: 283
• Chapter Twelve Exile No More: 311
• Chapter Seventeen Chicago and the Wizard: 433
• Chapter TwentyThree Known Race Agitator: 575
• Chapter TwentyFour Prisoners of War: 592

About the author

Paula J. Giddings is the Elizabeth A. Woodson 1922 Professor in Afro-American Studies at Smith College and the author of When and Where I Enter and In Search of Sisterhood.

Bibliographic information

• Title: Ida: A Sword Among Lions: Ida B. Wells and the Campaign Against Lynching
• Author: Paula J. Giddings
• Edition: illustrated, reprint
• Publisher: Harper Collins, 2009
• ISBN: 0061972940, 9780061972942
• Length: 832 pages
• Subjects: Biography & Autobiography / Women; Social Science / Ethnic Studies / American / African American & Black Studies; Social Science / Women's Studies