Who was Ida B. Wells and what was her anti-lynching work?

• A. A reformer who campaigned for literacy tests.
• B. A journalist who documented lynching but focused only on local law.
• C. Ida B. Wells was a journalist and anti-lynching activist who documented lynching and campaigned for federal anti-lynching legislation.
• D. A musician who promoted desegregation.

Answer: (C)

Ida B. Wells was a journalist and anti-lynching activist who documented lynching and campaigned for federal anti-lynching legislation. She used investigative reporting to expose the brutal violence Black communities faced and to challenge the idea that lynching was about crime. Through newspapers, pamphlets, and public speaking, she detailed lynching cases, published powerful analyses like Southern Horrors and Lynch Law in All its Phases, and argued that the violence was a tool of racial terror that state and local authorities often failed to stop. She then pushed for federal reform, traveling, speaking, and organizing to press for nationwide anti-lynching laws. This combination of careful documentation and national advocacy is why this answer best captures who she was and what she worked for. The other options don’t fit her broader impact: she was not focused on literacy tests, nor did she limit her work to local law, and she was not a musician.