coverage thursday on c-span joint chiefs of staff chair general joseph dunford talks about military operations and priorities for the future. that is at 10:30 am eastern. later at 515, inspectors general from health and human services, the commerce department the pentagon and the department discuss their oversight role government. on c-span two in the morning federal communications commission chair speak to the american cable association, that is followed by the heritage foundation hosting a discussion on the national security applications of 5g technology. more american history tv now smith college africana studies paula giddings talks about lynching activists and pioneer ida b. wells. the 75 minute event is hosted by the oakland historical society.

good evening, my name is sylvia lewis and i am a graduate of smith college. is anyone from smith here? i am a new person on the board of trustees here. marsha has recruited me and i am on the programs committee when i saw that professor gettings said yes i said oh boy i am going to try to get my smithies here. i said oh my goodness we are going to take the place. i hope you are ready.'s wanted to give you a special welcome to the brooklyn historical society from the black alumni of smith college in the smith college new york city. this is a joint cosponsorship of the reception after the presentation. please join us for that.

i just wanted to let you know that they asked me to say a few words so just to let you know that i went to smith in the 1970s and we did not have a book about ida b. wells. i am so glad that professor gettings wrote that book and i think it's the largest book i ever read after graduating because it's a really thick book. i don't know if you have seen it. i was so glad. she is one of those sisters, and that is the seat the same tonight, his sister had. she is one of those sisterhood, i am identifying with the delta, i am not a delta but in my mind i am identifying with them. she is one of those sisters who was the most famous lack woman of her time and somehow we do not know about her. i was just really thrilled to see that we were able to present this program tonight.

that's really all i wanted to say, this place is about history, it's about stories about the lives that were erased from history, overlooked people and that's when i really am very thrilled about tonight and about gettings presentation. we are tech team, i would like to call my sister, reverend doctor oliver. she has been on the board a very long time. we are like a tagteam. so valerie, okay. >> good evening everyone. thank you so much sylvia, you are so sweet. i am so glad that you are with us at the historical society. everybody who knows me knows that i love the brooklyn historical society.

i have served on this board for 32 years and i came, my babies were small and they went to packer and i had sheila and sarah and crean as my mentors and they introduced it me to the society and i have been here ever since. today, i am so proud that we are doing this program on the heals of celebrating doctor martin luther king. the major drama in our civil rights movement. we bring you another model of a legend tonight, except she is a woman! ida b. wells. i could not be more proud then

to be part of the same sisterhood as our speaker paula giddings. she is a delta sigma theta, all of the members of the delta sigma theta sorority please stand. tonight we celebrate you as well because when one of us are celebrated we are all celebrated. for those of you who do not know much about the delta sigma theta sorority i just want you to know a little bit of history because this is the brooklyn historical society. delta sigma theta was established it is known as dst. it was incorporated in 1913 and we are a sisterhood of more than 250,000. these are educated women all over the world.

there are more than 975 chapters located in the u.s., england, japan, germany, virgin islands, bermuda, bahamas, and the republic of korea. prominent members of dst include but are not limited to the honorable shirley chisholm, aretha franklin, dorothy height, sicily tyson, mary cloud, ruby the, lena horne, nikki giovanni, these are just a few of the prominent members of delta data sigma sorority. paula j gettings is our speaker

she is the elizabeth woodson 1922 professor emma rightist of american studies at smith college. she is the author of when and where i enter. not to go to all of her background, because you have her book and you know more about her than i do but i can say to you that i am most proud that in 2017 paula giddings was inducted into the american academy of arts and science. [ applause ] tonight, ladies and gentlemen, please help me welcome on behalf of the brooklyn this oracle society, our community partners, the delta sigma theta sorority

sisterhood, let's welcome paula giddings to brooklyn and to the brooklyn historical society. [ applause ] welcome my dear. >> thank you so much valerie for that wonderful introduction. thank you marsha eli for inviting me to this august place . i really appreciate it. and cookie lewis, great organizer that you are, i really appreciate your doing this and reaching out. look at

this group. thank you so much. good to know that there are some smith black alums in the house and some smith new york alums in the house and delta is in the house. welcome one and all. ida b. wells , i am going to talk about her, not just tonight as a black woman journalist who launched the nation's first antilynching campaign in 1892 but as a reformer who is modern and progressive ideas became the

foundation of the modern civil rights and women's rights movement. for some reason we never think of blacks particularly in this period as progressive reformers and thinkers but no people were more progressive in the classical sense of the word, people were mobilizing to eliminate the cause by industrialization and political corruption in this period. people who had a vision of a future society with these reforms are realized. no one was more progressive than african-american. secondly, i want to talk about welles's short but consequential stay in brooklyn. because i am in brooklyn.

seriously, it cannot be overstated how important it is that wells came as an exile from memphis to the city first. she had great support here. maybe more than anywhere else. sometimes we assume that someone as heroic as ida b. wells would be supported but she wasn't. after she leaves brooklyn, frederick douglass invites her to speak in washington dc and the only people in the audience where frederick and his family. the support which i will talk about in brooklyn was really so significant. this means of course since i'm going to emphasize and focus on these two things this means i'm going to leave out more than half of her asked of it activist life.

in chicago beginning in 1895 but these feel free to ask me about it in the q&a or any questions about anything i mentioned here. even though i am preaching to the choir now, i am going to begin by giving a very quick bullet point overview of ida b. wells's biography just in case there are those who might not have spent as much time with her as i have. i will do this very quickly. i will try not to be caught in the weeds which i always do but let me go through very quickly with a bullet point overview chronologically. 1862, ida b. wells is born in holly springs mississippi to enslaved parents who like many extraordinary african-americans make a good transition to freedom. her father, james, is a skilled carpenter who will

have his own business and family home. his mother -- her mother elizabeth is known as a famous cook. educated at college one of the many schools inspired by the methodist bremen society, ida b. wells attended there with many other blacks in the region including her mother. who went to school with her. she had a happy childhood until about 1878 when yellow fever epidemic rages across the mississippi valley. her parents , james and elizabeth, die within 24 hours of one another. this leaves ida, then age 16, and three younger sisters and two younger brothers, leaving them as orphans. soon after, we see ida's first

act of defiance when she refuses the wishes of family friends who want to divide the children among them. instead she asked help to get a teaching job so she could support the family herself. in this chaotic and lawless and victorian environment of ravaged holly springs this decision of hers makes her vulnerable to vicious rumors about her wanting to be on her own to solicit the favors of white men. the charge combined with a devastating death of her parents will have an effect on her psyche and her activism. you can ask me more about that, i won't go into that in this talk. in 1880 she moves to memphis with an aunt, aunt fanny wells who would also been widowed by the yellow fever epidemic in memphis. in memphis, 44,000 people fled with the coming of yellow fever and 5000 on its remaining 20,000 in memphis perished.

it just wiped out memphis. ida becomes a teacher in the memphis school system, she becomes part of lac m, a publication she will edit called the evening tar. in 1883 at the age of 21 she begins her activist career in earnest when she refuses to give up her first-class seat in the ladies car of the chesapeake and ohio railway. she sues the sea endo, wins the suit in the circuit court. the judge in the case deemed ida a woman and this is, ladylike comportment and a schoolteacher who had the right to sit in the first-class car. just a little, i cannot help myself, there is a transcript of this court case

and it describes, you know ida comes to court and she is dressed as she always is, dressed to the nines. hat, gloves, pearsall, and she is sitting there very properly. the conductor who had tried to actually repair out of the seat , try to physically extricate her. in doing so she bit him. in the court case he says to the judge, she looks like a lady now, but i bled freely. [ laughter ]. a local baptist newspaper asks her to write about hoechst variant. her experience. this would be the beginning of her career as a journalist. a discussion were she writes the real me. by 1889 she is known nationally as the princess of the press and in that year buys a one

third interest in a memphis newspaper called the free- speech. in 1892, after a friend of hers thomas moss, and two others are viciously tortured and lynched she will launch the nations first antilynching campaign through editorials and investigating reporting. she will call this the truth about lynching. this was said to be occurring because black men were white women across the south. i will talk more about that. moreover, in protest wells calls for blacks to leave memphis in the wake of the lynching and about 20% of them did. she also leads a crawl trolley car strike, a trolley car boycott which leaves the company on the edge of bankruptcy. i will talk little bit more about that. in that same year after particularly provocative editorial a newspaper offices destroyed, her free-speech

partner run out of memphis and she herself is threatened with lynching. she is exiled to oakland. it is here in brooklyn where she will through the black paper the new york age published the first study of lynching in its pages. in 18 93 she protest the lack of representation at the columbian exposition of that year. later in 93 and again in 94 she takes her campaign to the british isles where she gained support from reformers newspaper editorials, the duke pick of of argyle and canterbury all and others. she triumphed in newark city. she takes a campaign from the east coast and to california will sign finally settle in chicago where she marries a true partner, fernand barnett and gives birth to four children between 1896 and 1904. the letter was born when she was 42 years old. i was happy

to be able to write about a good marriage, that was a good marriage. in chicago, ida b. wells now wells barnett, establishes the cities first black kindergarten. i think only black women liked lynching on monday and kindergarten tuesday. establishes a settlement house, becomes an advocate for black prison. she actually save the lives of the number of men bound for execution. she establishes both black and interracial women's civic organizations, forms the first black women's suffrage organization in chicago that is responsible for electing chicago's first black aldermen. she cofounded the naacp and the year before her death in 1931 she runs for a state senate seat as an independent. she had requested that at her

funeral, the song be sung entitled, i have done my work. very apropos. if anybody -- you can listen to that. if you are not familiar with that, mahalia jackson does a version of it that will just send chills down your spine. okay. the big turning point obviously in wells's life occurs in march 1892 when in memphis thomas moss kevin mcdowell and henry stewart were lynched. moss, a poster carrier who was president of a co-op called the people's grocery where the other men also worked was a close friend of ida b. wells . he met her and talk to her on his postal route when he went

past newspaper office. they taught me school together. his wife was a good friend of hers as well and was pregnant at this time. wells was a godmother of his baby girl maureen. what led up to the murders was a series of events provoked by a white proprietor and competitor who was losing business to the black grocery. the bottom line is, the provocations resulted in a racial scuffle near the grocery, there are lots of black arrest, they were shooting in self-defense by the black men of three white deputy sheriffs who had come to destroy the grocery. the men were imprisoned and on march 9 1892, 75 masked men riding on horseback including it was known the criminal judge of shelby county, wrote to the

shelby county jail, searched for morris mcdowell and stewart, took them by train to a vacant lot and tortured and lynched them. we know the gruesome details of this lynching because white newspapers were told about it in advance and dispatched reporters to write about it. mcdowell's fingers were shut off inch by inch and four holes shot into his face and neck large enough to insert a fifth. his right eye was shot through and his brains oozed out of the opening. stewart moss were also shot to the face and neck in the same manner. a replication it seems of the injuries suffered by the three white deputy sheriffs. talk about an eye for and i. at first wells was so devastated after hearing this news, and actually surprised that she could not write anything. she described a black community in

shock. the thing to remember here, is that not till 1886 that more blacks were lynched than whites and the racial is asian of the practice that began in the revolutionary years, that's how old lynching is in the u.s., had not completely sunk in. this kind of thing was not supposed to happen in a sophisticated city like memphis where blacks were succeeding according to the progressive ideas of the time and certainly wasn't supposed to happen to a man like moss. aggressive ideas in this period had a religious significance. it was believed that all of the innovative and laborsaving technology, electricity, steam engine, the press, were part of god's design. to propel society forward

toward its perfect destiny uplift and improvement. the destiny without corruption ignorance want or send. in this formulation, this pursuit of wealth was not only acceptable but a religious calling. poverty was equated with failure and sin thus the undeserving poor in our culture. blacks were certainly doing their part. just 12 years before the election of 1880, 92% of black eligible voters voted in tennessee. 92%. they elected a republican governor and a number of legislators including several black legislators who proposed in one of some instances, the rights legislation. black students had higher attendance rates in the public schools than whites. those

schools where wells was teaching were racially separate but teachers lack and white male and female were paid on the same salary scale. progressive city. education with deemed important including education for women. it was like it with particularly black students with one commentator said like a whole race trying to go to school. black literacy had risen dramatically in these years. so much so that the number of blacks who could read in memphis and elsewhere provided a sufficient market for the first time for black newspapers. like the free speech. in this period, 200 lack weeklies were published throughout the countries. 200 of them. people could make a career out

of journalism. this included women. women were very involved even with typesetting as well as writing women's columns. part of the progressive idea in the black community was also the uplifting of women. we congratulate the country upon the progress and advancement of the color people wrote a revolution resolution of the colored association in 1884, and it is with gratitude to god that we renew our pledges as journalists to support and sustain every institution of learning and industry that tends to enlighten and benefit our social religious and material interest, progressive. as noted, blacks had also struck a blow with ida b. wells's victory with the railway in chesapeake ohio which was large during a time that the railways were considered as a korean eyes illustration pointed out, the

agent and symbol of america's republic civilization. in that case she had been legally declared a lady which in this period was essential to getting the protections and benefits of the law. this was particularly poignant because lack women who suffered, lack women suffered so many perceptions during -- because of the history of slavery, and the history of sexual fodder during slavery, this is why if you look in history in this period there are lots of cases, number of cases of black women on the railways trying -- eight issues around the first-class latest car because when you have a ladies car and you have laws as memphis does as separate but equal then

equality depended on the equal treatment of white women and black women and black women were suing for this constantly. african-americans in just one generation since slavery were doing their part in this religion of progress and no one more so then thomas moss. he was a symbol of the new south progressive ideology. he had been saving money even as a young teenager, he had an account in the friedmans bank, he was not particularly political, he was entrepreneurial, his job as a postal carrier required passing a federal exam which he had done. the people's grocery was co- owned as i mentioned by back citizens ranging from laborers to school principals.

this was also symbolic of the business acumen of african- americans in memphis. this is not to say that they were not ruggles, democrats were beginning to take over in the late 80s and early 90s. disenfranchisement began in the late 80s, wells herself was disappointed -- she loses the court case on appeal but for a people who had been enslaved or the parents and/or the parents had been enslaved and who were now teachers and storeowners and political officials, they were just that struggles inevitably be overcome. after all, as ida's minister, benjamin noted during this period, blacks are in a christian civilization with republican form of government.

such a nation can only build on the idea of liberty intelligence industry and equal chance in the struggle for manhood. inevitable. inevitable. get rid of ignorance, accumulate wealth, inevitable first-class citizenship. but the most murder was as ida wrote in her autobiography, the community's first lesson in white supremacy while searching for the right words for her editorial she remembers something said in one of the papers. moss last words as he was facing death was, tell my people to go west. there is no justice for them here. west was the oklahoma territories. it was opening up in this

period. to wells, even her own astonishment after reiterating her words in the editorial, blacks start leaving immediately . if you read the newspaper descriptions, thousands would line up at the docks. people with their mules and everything they owned and their wagons, ready to go all the way to oklahoma. within the year, 20% of the black population leaves memphis, which is a large percentage of its workforce and the city suffers mightily. people were without their laborers, households were without made, and as ida quotes , lacks work great consumers in terms of restaurants and stores. they also tended to buy on layaway. now they were gone.

soon after, i delete a trolley car boycotting memphis. the trolley car is owned by a northern firm had been recently electrified, part of the technology of the period. one day representatives came to wells's new paper office to ask her to persuade black writers to write them again. they had stopped writing the trolley cars and they did not understand it. the representatives thought that maybe blacks were afraid of the electricity. to this wells and simply asked them, were people writing the trolley cars before the most murder? well yes. so stating the obvious, ida said the boycott was a protest and until mosses killers were brought to justice the cars were going to stay empty.

indeed, ida went from church to church telling and encouraging blacks to stay off the trolleys and they did. white leaders began to feel the pinch. not only in terms of economics but this was also a period where it was important for the south in general, and memphis in particular, to have an image of stability, tranquility, and adhering to the progressive mantra. wells also understood this and her campaign was shaped in part to show what the south really was. in response, memphis leaders started to relent. they did not deliver the murderers but there were apologies in newspapers. condemnations of lynching in general and moss in particular and compensation given to mosses widow, betty. she also understood now the political power, and she

understood this before anyone else really does, that political power newly available in this new modern industrial age. to more than capital she wrote, and afro-american labor the south owes its rehabilitation, it's labor is withdrawn, capital will not relate remain. the afro-american is the backbone of the south and a thorough knowledge and judicial exercise of this power in lynching localities could many times effect a bloodless revolution. so in the face all the time when people are afraid of mobs, afraid of mobilizing and certainly don't want the unwashed masses involved, ida wells dart calling for an interclass grassroots rebellion. the days when elite who successively pursued well would only negotiate with the race was coming to an end. after the lynching, wells

became not just a writer and great editorialist but investigative journalist. she goes to the sites of lynching, chic calls reports and other papers she pulls out statistics to prove her point. in 1892 lynching had reached a new annual peak of 241. a conservative estimate is that 728 and i'm a conservative, 728 lynchings took place between 1882 and 1891. by 1927, after this period, the number would reach about 5000. in her investigation, wells finds that there are consensual liaisons. between black men and white women. they were often called when discovered. furthermore, she finds, and she writes this in statistics, which is a new

innovation at the time as well, the use of statistics. not even a third of blacks were accused of much less guilty of it. blacks were being lynched for talking back to white people, for petty crimes, or like moss, because they competed successfully with white. this has tremendous implications for wells. implications that she is one of the first to understand. first, there is a new mantra of progress that needs to be told. black achievement alone was not a gateway to first-class citizenship but a threat to the new southern order and even one's life. her editorials worst blacks to not judge the rasul situation by only their successes but also

by the fact that the same time violence disenfranchisement and mass incarceration were also increasing. this is actually helped me understand the contemporary situation as well. wells understood before many of her peers that there had been a turn against blacks because southern whites had failed the moral and feared spiritual quest of progress. southern quarter was violent with all of its could not write itself cannot could not purify its moneymaking ways. there was a referendum lobbied hard by black-and-white prohibitionists to keep the city of memphis dry. the referendum -- memphis was at the center of the south with the trade. it went against too many monetary interests to succeed. nevertheless, the defeat was blamed on black voters. they

said they voted against prohibition which later analysis showed to be completely untrue. still, soon after that vote, disenfranchisement efforts begin in earnest in memphis. now as the white papers begin to point out across the country, blacks were an obstacle to god's plan of progress. the idea became the foundation of the emerging social sciences of the time. now giving racism a premature objective -- this was especially evident in ivy league schools that were largely financed by contemporaneous and former slave owners. britain, a yale graduate, a

university of pennsylvania professor and one time president of the congress of anthropology and the american association for the advancement of science in 1890, said that and i quote, blacks had regressed to being midway between the orangutan and the european white. the correlation to this belief as britain also pointed out was that lacks were impelled to white women and thus raise his race to a higher level. wells investigation had revealed the seductive sexuality of white women and the attractiveness and civility other black lovers gave lie to the social science. believe me, she is aware of what she is up against which is why she uses statistics and information from white sources as well as her own.

her writing also includes the violence toward women and girls. like the sexual assault of the black 8-year-old maggie reese by a white man who became a detective in and the lynching of a 15-year- old mildred brown, purely circumstantial evidence for poisoning a white baby of the family, she worked for. these were the real female victims, thus begging the question who are the real rapists. and criminals. thus, in the victorian world, where class is conflated with character and character destiny, walls not only accuses representative white men and women as they were known of all kinds of skulduggery, but says that all black women deserved protection. and that there's an important role that leadership along the laboring classes. and finally, noting that the

more the affluent american cringes and bags, the more he is insulting and outraged and ridged, wells believed that quote the lessons this teaches in which every afro-american, ponders is that a winchester rifle should have a place of honor in every black home. and you wonder why she was run out of memphis. in may 1890, she wrote her famous editorial, eight negroes lynched since the last issue of the free speech she wrote, three for killing a white man and five on the same old racket, the law of raving white women. the same program of hanging and

shooting bullets into the lifeless bodies was carried out to the letter. if southern white men are not careful, they will overreach themselves and public sentiment will have a reaction. a conclusion will then be reached which will be very damaging to the moral reputation of their women. editorial was published when wells had already left on a long planned trip to philadelphia, an ame conference there. from there, she went to new york, where she has met by the great editor thomas fortune, he says to her, well, we've been a long time getting to new york. but now that you're here, i'm afraid that you will have to stay. wells is what are you talking about? she didn't understand what he said that. then she learns that all had

broken out, in memphis after that editorial. the newspaper had been destroyed, the business partner threatened with castration and forced to flee the city, a former co-owner of the paper pistol whipped and forced to sign a letter denouncing the editorial as slander against white women. wells and there are folks posted at the railway station to interceptor. she was told there are local black ministry group would protect her if she returned. but ida concluded that doing so would mean more bloodshed, more widows. ida b wells was now in exile. she would not set foot in the native south, for the next 30 years. having destroyed my paper, had a price put on my life, and

been named exile from home for hinting at the truth, i felt i owed it to myself, and to my race, to hold the whole truth now, that now that i was where i could do so freely. she would do so in the front page editorial in the new york age, entitled the truth about lynching. is the 1st of the of the practice that includes all the elements. marked that thinking i was talking about, in a new age of protest. 1000 copies of the addition was sold in memphis, alone. back in memphis, so-called representative colored folks, many of whom she personally noon and some of whom she dated, we won't go there right now, were condemning her. many blacks, even moderates

like her minister, who had been publicly critical of wells, were forced to leave the city just because of their association with her, like benjamin imes, who was so hopeful she had a nervous breakdown. so wells, now, was planted in brooklyn. now i'm going to talk about very descriptive descriptive elements about brooklyn, i loved researching brooklyn, and understanding the context of where she came to, with a new experience for something in brooklyn, memphis had a population of 34,000 brooklyn residents number 795,000, in this period, nevertheless, brooklyn had a black population of only 10,000.

795,000, and mavis had a black operation of 15,000. although the majority of blacks held low-wage positions in the north and south, a different observed was that though the south restricted blacks in many personal rights, they were interested in trays and locations, where is by contrast, northern blacks may have had more individual rights, but were largely excluded from such work by labor unions. and employers. one of the biggest issues in brooklyn at the time, was that of surprise surprise housing. there were great fears that having blacks move into rich neighborhoods that the property values would decline. just before ida arrived, and we

at times reported investigated this issue, and was startled to find, african-americans who lived in brownstone, employed white servants, and wrote in carriages driven by coachmen, they took this accumulation of wealth seriously. one can only imagine ida's emotional state in the city, and again, it's so important, how this city embraced her. 1st of all, thomas fortune found her a place to live. where he lived. on gold street. known as the vinegar hill section of town. he lived there, his lawyer lived there, and his publisher

lived in that area. fortune would be a very good friend to her, of course, his newspaper with new york age was the most important black newspaper in the country. and the most widely read, and he was the most brilliant, he had a difficult time later on in his life becomes an alcoholic, and has problems with financial problems with the paper, but he is the man who is self-taught, still gets into howard law school, changes and becomes a journalist, and publishes the great new york age. ida would also see, she would participate in memphis, but the lysine's in brooklyn, were something.

there was the brooklyn literary union, these are all black, the concorde literary circle, the progressive literary union, and the starlight team among other people. educated african-americans like ida were familiar with shakespeare, dickens, alcott, and the brontk sisters. as a teacher in memphis she was a member of the equities, as i mentioned, in this period, this is not literature for literature's sake, african- americans were promoting literature that was deemed valuable for its power to redefine and enlighten the race. this is a voice from the south, 1st four minutes, back for feminist, francis ellen harper and frederick douglass. all of these forms are so well attended, that if the brooklyn daily eagle, a white newspaper, noted in 1892 that, quote, no other group of people were fonder of literary pursuits,

and african-americans.". ida herself was invited to speak on afro-american literature, to open the season at the concorde literary circle and the concorde baptist church, and drew the largest audience that ever attended a literary meeting in that city. is the newspaper of the washington beavers was also hypercritical of everything, either completely captivated the large and cultivated audience. she also, in this period, debates, goes into a debate, that a really wonderful figure, some of you may know, in brooklyn, she was born of a family in new york city, her father's business was ruined in the draft rights of 1863, you look at history, it's not a

history of never having, it's things being taken away. thousands, hundreds of businesses, black business institutions were destroyed in that riot, at least one man was rinsed, lynn stone clarkson street and torched while hanging from a tree. lyons family moved to providence, rhode island, where they will not admit her into the only high school, which was a white high school, so she gets admission into the school, she returns to new york, and she has been tapped at this point to be the 1st assistant principal of a formerly all- white school, ps 83, which consolidated pupils and teachers with all black ps 68. the education board's decision to consolidate, rather than separate students, was largely

due to the effort of fortunes lawyer. stuart was a member of the brooklyn board, and who had gotten support of the brooklyn literary union. in this debate, this is typical ida, you get a reflection of her personality, was that she goes to lyons, and says, teach me to debate. and lyons tutors her, and then ida leaves brooklyn, she's going to be one of the best speakers and she's going to be on the speaking tour in england. and this bodes very well for her. i'm going to go quickly with other people she meets, and this great, this great moment in support of her, she meets

people like sarah garnett, new york's 1st black public school principal, and widow of the famous abolitionist. she meets susan mckinney, in 1870 graduate of new york medical college for women, the 1st black woman to practice medicine in new york state, and the 3rd black woman to do so in the country. she meets victoria matthews, who has an unbelievable story, matthews was also a journalist, who was in the profession, her mother had been a slave in virginia, the masters had treated everyone so badly, that the mother leaves her children there, but she comes back.

and sues to get them, back, and she regains possession of them, these are some kind of people. is matthew's suggestion that, to organize the testimonial for ida, almost done, and lyons readily agrees, the idea was not to only show support for wells and to raise money, to publish her age editorial as a pamphlet, but also to use the occasion to bring women after this together, from philadelphia, boston, new york, and brooklyn. but new york were two separate entities at this time, for a common cause. very much on the minds of the organizers was the issue of the less than cordial relations between black women in new york and those in brooklyn. wells offered no further insight into this, but blacks in the two cities had a long- standing rivalry.

the tension between the two groups 1st appeared after those rise of 1863, but more affluent families began abandoning new york for brooklyn. the trend continued in the 19 1890s, as soon as black new yorkers amassed a fortune, they moved across the east river into brooklyn. is a newspaper noted. lyons and matthews had calculated rightly, that attribute to wells would generate enough mutual interest for the women to overcome their differences. in fact, the idea was met with so much enthusiasm that there soon was no house large enough to hold those who came. finally, the committee of 250 women were appointed from both places, to organize a testimonial. in october 1892. picture this. in a place where the stage was

emblazoned with gas jets spelled iola across the back of the platform, her pen name was sewn onto the silk badges worn by the ushers, who passed out the programs, and women came, she called it a brilliant gathering of women who attended, including philadelphia journalists, harper, gertrude bussell, josephine rusyn, very important figure in boston, and others. ida wells is overwhelmed by the scene. for the 1st time, she tears up when she recounts what had brought her there, but again, she was so supportive of the fact that victoria matthews goes across the stage and gives her a handkerchief.

for her tears. ida was so mad at herself for crying, she said, others told her, it really moved the audience. the event raised more than $400 beyond expenses, and that was efficient enough to publish the pamphlet. which was called, which i did indicated to the afro-american women of new york and brooklyn, who earned zero in unselfish effort made possible this publication. the importance, the importance of the supportive brooklyn activists, men and especially women cannot be overstated.

it became the basis for the 1st black national women's organization in history, the national association of colored women, founded just four years later, and other leader protest organizations like the niagara league and the naacp. for one wells council black that social advancement, we are not agents of change in themselves, she was laying the groundwork for protest movements in a post- victorian world, where conflict had its place, where progress was not inevitable, without political protests in action, and where language, natural law, defined the meaning of race. somebody must show that the african-american race, who had found the vehicle of her destiny, and seems to have fallen on to do so. thank you very much.

>> [ applause ] >> we will open the floor for questions, so just put your hand up and i will see if i can get to you. >> so, this is absolutely fascinating, and of the many questions that come to mind, how is she able to navigate all of this as a single woman? because what i know about the

period, at least, it seems like you had to have a man be in a household, in order to do anything legally, in order to be thought of as being a proper woman, so how did she do this being single? >> she did even more, she started selling subscriptions, alter the mississippi valley. and she went alone, as a woman. so, she did have help, in that in terms of, for example when she sold subscriptions, her father had been a master mason, the black fraternal order, in holly springs, so the masons, in mississippi valley, helped ida with the newspapers, and protected her. but this is a problem for her, because not only was she single, she was an orphan. so she had really, no protectors. and this had an impact on her,

if you read the book, ida had a very interesting dating history. she kept a diary, so we know some of this information. she just put in initials, but i found out who they were. >> [ laughter ] >> and what she demanded, always, and i actually started feeling sorry for the young men, she always demanded that they had the strength enough to protect her. that they be men. manley, to protect her. and this was very important, and she felt, sometimes, she regressed sometimes into a childlike, so, this was part of her, and this is also, translate into some of her politics. as well, she said we need to be

men and stand up to these. so, she had trouble, had some trouble, that rumor in holly springs follows her for a lot of her life, and she has to fight it. that i will end this with with this, one of the wonderful things about ferdinand, she's also called all kinds of names by the memphis press, as you can imagine, and i was thinking about slander because they actually called bracelet, and, the new york times called her a nasty minded, that's my favorite. and she was thinking about going to court, and she asked a white judge, who was a friend of the race, about slander, etc. and he said, i'm kind of busy right now, this was a judge who was doing court reports. he said i'm busy right now, but

i have a lawyer who you should talk to. and that was how she met ferdinand barnett, her husband. who defends her. despite all of those name- calling and the victorian, he defends her and stands by her. and that's probably why she married him. >> think you, this is brilliant, you're the ultimate teacher on the ultimate subject, i feel honored to be in the room. on the subject of giving ida her thing, i'm so happy that funding was raised for a monument for her to be her honor to be erected in chicago. reading in the book, a little bit about how ida was painted as crotchety, a little bit, do you think that was more so because people like her contemporaries, didn't give her her, i have issues getting them now but do you think she had a

bad rap based on not given her do? >> both are true. she was given a bad rap, because for one thing, she was very critical. she was publicly critical of people, when she felt like they weren't living up to what they needed for the race. so people weren't happy with that. secondly, she is, again, transgresses, gender roles, ideas around class, and all that, so people are upset. about that. but she's also, because of her situation of being orphaned, if you look at the psychological models, of people who are orphans, at critical ages, she fits the psychological model of

feeling a great deal of internal anger. over that, that sometimes just spurts out. she had a hard time making friends, but, what's interesting about her, is that then you see all of this in the diary, she is working so hard, she calls her angle her besetting sin, and she works so hard to transform that energy into something else, and she succeeds to a good degree, so part of that, she is a driven reformer, and part of that drive is the energy that she can turn in a constructive way. but she doesn't do it completely. she still has her moments, but she is so self-inflicted, and self-aware, and she tries so hard, she talked about reform

as a society but she's trying to reform herself. >> here's my question. i'm from memphis, tennessee. born, raised. never recall hearing about ida, in high school, early 60s. my question is, given the she raised there, and made less there, is there a monument in her honor now, in memphis, because as an adult, i would like to go back and take a look, and now that i know about the civil rights museum, that has been created and is growing every single day, did that museum embrace her as a civil rights mover? >> i'm pretty sure, i don't remember specifically, about

the museum, but i think, she's at least mentioned, i believe, whether she's given her do is another question. there's a marker dedicated to either, in memphis, on beale street. but there needs to be more, there's talk of, there's a forest called the bedford, there's a park bedford forrest park, he was a horrible confederate soldier, who just mowed down blacks, so they said, the movement to rename that, >> so you could really start something. here. and some of us could do in memphis. >> okay. okay. and there is, when i spoke in memphis the last time, there

was a class of 6-year-olds, from the ida wells academy. and they had the banner, ida wells academy. i didn't realize, but they were in the back i didn't realize, they were holding it for so long as i was, with her little hands. you know? but that's a really good sign, i think. >> excellent research, that's fantastic, to know about her, her life. we know about her product >> that something, where? >> over here. [ laughter ] as i drop my phone. okay, thanks. i think one of the things i find that's really interesting we are talking about historical figures, we don't talk a lot about their lives.

particularly when we are talking about african-american women, we never really talk about the loves of their lives and i'm thinking in terms of, there's a lot of great prolific african-american women, as if someone loved them, so i really appreciate, because we can't go on in our lives, we can't be like, that's fantastic and fabulous, without somebody cheering us on. there's got to be somebody. there's got to be somebody. and i really appreciate, that coming to the forefront and letting them really see the whole human being, of the person. notices early like, she did that, and lives in a mansion, and that's it, it's not. she is a full human peer >> i try to be very conscious peer >> i appreciate that. >> for wells, and for those that she encountered as well.

you're right, it's very important. >> it's an honor to be in this room and hear you speak about her. i also want to thank you, because i've cited you so many times in my grad work. can i thank you ahead of time? i graduated. >> think you. [ laughter ] >> i cited your work, and i thank you, i've always wanted to ask you this, i know in the suffragist marge, in 1913, she told to not march in the back, and i always wondered what kind of relationship did she have after that? with black and white women, and at that particular time also, mary frances wrote a book about kelly house and the reparations movement. she was another black movement from the south as well who was trying to organize, who actually went to jail, for

trying to organize ex-slaves, to get reparations from a country, and they did a lot of different things to her, similar to what they did with mark mcgarvey, i wonder what her relationship with her was like, she was cantankerous as well, and if you could speak a little bit about her relationship with mary terrel, and his contemporaries. i know she helped to define the naacp but then was ousted as well. thank you. >> okay. >> [ laughter ] >> let me start with the 1st question. that's a wonderful scene, i'm tempted to read the book, the scene of how ida forces herself to say black women can't march in the front of the suffrage parade, and she just, hides

until her continued illinois women starts, and then pops up and goes right to the middle of it. but she has, she has a decent relationship with the suffragist, both black and white, she's very important, she's very important to chicago politics. she is really, because she mobilized women's vote, in chicago, that's how she got that alderman elected, even though he really never appreciated it. but she mobilized white women as well. and she worked with white suffragists, as well, and they lobbied together, so, and she, of course, starts off the suffrage club which is the 1st black women's organization. so, she maintained a good

relationship with them, she's very important, they don't have much of a choice. she's also asked, she and her husband were republicans, before she becomes an independent, and she also goes around the state for republican candidates, white and black. she's an important figure there. what was the 2nd? i'm not sure about her relationship, they had similar, ida wells also worked with marcus, and this is the home of with marcus garvey as well, and we also talked about reparations, because she lived at a time in 91, 13 italians were lynched, and the families got reparations, the italian government got reparations from the u.s., as a result of that. so she said, well, why not

african-americans? she was involved in that as well, but mary wells, she had a hard time. you met her in memphis, as well, and they meet there, and they meet there, in the admiration society, when they 1st meet, because she liked terrel and what terrel stood for, terrel was one of those people who was not doing, wasn't worried about all that ladylike stuff, she takes as some of you know, she goes and takes the gentleman's course, insist on taking what's called the gentleman's course, which includes latin and greek, and math, and if you know the history of blacks, even in black communities in the south, which was not so extraordinary, she had a teacher, who wells also knew, who taught latin and

greek in the black public schools. so, but later on, they would become they became competitors around the national association of colored women. and terrel becomes the 1st president, i hate to take it out of context, because it's the wrong story, but she feels that terrel tries to take too much power, and undermines the chicago people for the washington people, and she was more conservative. as well. terrel stays on the other side of the idea of progress. you know? so ida has conflict, with people that are conservative to

view. >> we have time for one more question. >> she had a kidney. issues with her kidneys. in 31, she was the type of person that, when things happen to her, things would happen in her body, when she lost her settlement house, a couple days later she goes into the hospital for a while, and breaks down, but she has kidney failure, in the end. that wasn't the last question, there was another question peer >> did you work with frederick douglass, who would have been 44 years older than she was? >> she and frederick douglass had almost had a father daughter relationship. he recognizes her, in fact,

after that great testimonial, in brooklyn, he hears of it, and hears of her, and writes a letter to her saying how courageous she was, and how much he admired her. and she asks, if she could republish that letter in the pamphlet. and he said yes, so he is the leading race man, of his period, he's aging in this period, he will die soon, he will die in 95. but, he is the one, he lends her money to go to england. and he sets her up with of course, as some of you know, scottish and english activists, actually bought douglass's freedom.

and he gets her in touch with those people are still around, but they will have a problem toward the end, because ida wants him, well she's in england, to tell everyone that she represents the race. and he has a difficulty with that. he represents the race. so he will do everything else, she's courageous, she's telling the truth, but he won't say, she represents the race. and that's some tender stuff going on. so, she loves him anyway, she's disappointed, he's done things for her, as well, and she is

really very mournful when he dies, and by the way, when he dies, it's wells who should have been the new race, that's what they configured then, the race leader, she should've taken the mantle. but as we know, wb dubois and washington will duke it out for that. that's another story. thank you. >> [ applause ] >> will have more about women in history to mark women's history month in a moment. thursday night, the western history association hopes the discussion of 19th-century statutes and plaques, in the

american west, and other panels on western history, and its annual meeting in san antonio. watch beginning at 8 pm eastern here on c-span three. the 30th anniversary of the exxon valdez oil spill, remembering president george hw bush, and the inventor of the world wide web. all this weekend, on american history tv. saturday, starting 12:30 pm eastern, three programs marking the 30th anniversary of the exxon valdez oil spill. the 2nd largest in the u.s. the captain of the ship got on the radio and called the coast guard, in valdez, immediately, and he said, we are hard of grounded evidently we are leaking oil. and he said on the radio that he was going to try and rock the boat and get off and proceed, which was a terrifying

possibility, the ship was so badly damaged, there was a good chance it would have sunk or capsized. >> sunday at 8 pm eastern, on the presidency. for secretary of state james baker remembers his longtime friend president george hw bush. >> i was privileged to serve as his sector for four years, and i was extraordinary fortunate to serve a wonderful friend and a beautiful human being, as we all know. but to serve as secretary of state to a president who understood that he had to defend me and protect me, even when i was wrong. >> at nine, on the 30th anniversary of the world wide web, a conversation with his inventor, computer scientists tim berners-lee. >> imagine you have a big problem, with climate change, the pieces of the program are in different people's brains.

so can the web be a place there should be a place there were anyone has an idea i can tell you easily, and whatever i want as i wander around the space, looking at other people's ideas, i can pick them up and i can put them together, to be able to look and say, you been thinking this, i've been thinking this. >> watch american history tv, this weekend, on c-span three. >> american history tv continues, with fordham university history professor tristan on her book feminism forgotten five, the infinite struggle for work and family. she is joined by carter's woman eleanor holmes norton and feminist majority foundation president eleanor smeal, to discuss their involvement in the women's right movement. the feminist majority foundation national women's party and the city