This is an I-Heart podcast.

This is Lee Habib, and this is our American Stories, the show where America is the star

and the American people. Up next, the show where America is the star and the American people.

Up next, the story of Ida B. Wells. Born into slavery during the Civil War,

she is best remembered as an American journalist who fought tirelessly against lynching

during the Jim Crow era. Here to tell her story is our frequent contributor, Ashley Lubinsky.

Take it away, Ashley.

The name Ida B. Wells is most often associated with Black American advocacy in the post-Civil War period.

She has had a presence that has extended

all the way into modern day. But it's kind of interesting to understand her entire story,

because a solid portion of that has been largely forgotten by the American public. And that was

that not only was she a civil rights advocate,

not only was she an advocate for women's rights, but she also had a lot to do with the Second

Amendment advocacy in terms of self-defense and firearms training for African Americans.

Ida B. Wells was born in 1862 in Holly Springs, Mississippi, and she spent her first three

years of life as an enslaved person.

But after the war, the family became active in the Republican Party.

So she was a part of a family that were activists really from the start once African Americans

gained their freedom.

She attended Russ College for a little bit, but she ended up having to take care of her family

because her parents and her brother died in 1878 from Yellow Fever.

So she had several other siblings.

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