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Ida B. Wells, (July 16, 1862 – March 25, 1931), later called Ida Wells-Barnett, was an African-American civil rights advocate, and led the hard are causal agents for against lynching. Wells was natural inside Holly Springs, Mississippi. Inside 1884, she refused to move out of the unintegrated railway car within Memphis, Tennessee, and won a cause against a railroad company for forcibly removing her from either her seat, although a Supreme Court overturned the guide inside 1887. Around 1889, she became co-creator & editor of an anti-segregationist newspaper according to Beale Street in Memphis. Inside 1895, she published The Red Record, which documented her campaign against lynching. She was the introduction member of the NAACP in 1909. Around 1930, she run the Illinois state legislature, one of a number 1 black women ever to run public professional. She died inside Chicago, Illinois where a public housing complex was later known as around her honor. There exists too the high withinside her title in San Francisco, CA.

There has been a play/musical just about the life of Ida B. Wells known as "Constant Star" by Tazewell Thompson. A play utilizes 5 actresses to play her likewise when a bit of of the more characters taking part around her life. Although these are primarily the play, it includes astir Twenty spiritual songs sung per actressess. A charted occurs as quote from either a director/playright Tazewell Thompson himself:

"My first introduction to Ida B. Wells was the PBS documentary on her life. Her story gnawed at me. A woman born in slavery, she would grow to become one of the great pioneer activists of the Civil Rights movement. A precursor of Rosa Parks, she was a suffragette, newspaper editor and publisher, investigative journalist, co-founder of the NAACP, political candidate, mother, wife, and the single most powerful leader in the anti-lynching campaign in America. A dynamic, controversial, temperamental, uncompromising race woman, she broke bread and crossed swords with some of the movers and shakers of her time: Frederick Douglass, Susan B. Anthony, Marcus Garvey, Booker T. Washington, W.E.B. Du Bois, President McKinley. By any fair assessment, she was a seminal figure in Post-Reconstruction America.

On her passing in 1931, Ida B. Wells was interred in the Oak Woods Cemetery, Chicago. Her formidable contributions to the Civil Rights movement have, until most recently, been under-appreciated. Until now; almost, but not quite, an historical footnote.

This play with song is my attempt to let her story breathe freely on stage - to give it a symphonic expression - to give her extraordinary persona an audience, something she always craved."

Thomson-Gale: Black History Month - Biographies - Ida. B. Wells-Barnett
Born a slave, Ida B. Wells-Barnett (1862-1931), an African American journalist, was an active crusader against lynching and a champion of social and political justice for African Americans. A biography and a list of suggested books for further reading.