Ida B. Wells

Notes from America with Kai Wright

WNYC Studios

News Commentary, Politics, History, News

4.4 • 1.5K Ratings

🗓️ 18 October 2018

⏱️ 28 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Journalist and activist Ida B. Wells is in some ways a forgotten figure, overlooked even in black civil rights history. But her reporting on lynchings across the South was unwavering in its mission: calling America out on racial injustice. And, why black women are no longer willing to play the role of “Magical Negro” in U.S. politics. The United States of Anxiety recently recorded a live episode remembering the life and work of Ida B. Wells at The Greene Space. Watch the whole event here. The United States of Anxiety is supported in part by the Economic Hardship Reporting Project. Additional support for WNYC’s election coverage is provided by Emerson Collective, The New York Community Trust, and New York Public Radio Trustee Dr. Mary White. This report is produced with support from Chasing the Dream, a public media initiative from WNET reporting on poverty, jobs, and economic opportunity in America.

Transcript

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0:00.0	All right, so let's start with introduce yourself. Who are you?
0:05.0	I'm Paula Giddings, writer, biographer of Ida B Wells.
0:11.0	Ida Welles.
0:13.4	She's one of those names you've heard and you know she's a big deal.
0:17.3	But if you're honest, you probably don't know much about her real story.
0:22.4	Maybe you know she was a journalist who documented anti-Black lynchings or that
0:26.6	she helped start the N-W-A-C-P way back in the early 20th century. But all of that, it's just the top line.
0:33.0	I think you can make a credible case that I-Newelles' anti-Linching campaign is really the beginning of the modern civil rights movement.
0:42.0	I'm Kywright, this is the United States of Anxiety, Gender, Power, and the Mid-Term Elections.
0:47.0	And in this episode, The Power of One Strong Voice, to Speak Out, and and to galvanize citizens. We're going to go deep on Ida Wells. You are you.
1:03.0	you.
1:05.0	Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, Oh, oh,
1:07.0	Yes, we yeah to deal with this thing that happens, where black women get erased.
1:27.6	Harriet Tubman, owner judge.
1:29.6	They get reduced to cardboard cutouts if we say their names at all.
1:33.4	Claudette Colvin.
1:35.0	Lorraine Hansberry.
1:36.8	These women who have repeatedly been the driving force behind change in America.
1:41.7	Diane Nash. Fanny Lou Heh. As thought. force behind change in America, as thought leaders and flame throwers and field generals,
1:47.0	and yet who are so often dismissed and demonized.
1:54.2	Audra Lord, Angela Davis.
1:56.9	Even by their own communities and movements.
	...

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