Ida: A Sword Among Lions

Pulitzer Prize Board citation to Ida B. Wells, as an early pioneer of investigative journalism and civil rights icon

From a thinker who Maya Angelou has praised for shining "a brilliant light on the lives of women left in the shadow of history," comes the definitive biography of Ida B. Wells--crusading journalist and pioneer in the fight for women's suffrage and against segregation and lynchings

Ida B. Wells was born into slavery and raised in the Victorian age yet emerged--through her fierce political battles and progressive thinking--as the first "modern" black women in the nation's history.

Wells began her activist career when she tried to segregate a first-class railway car in Memphis. After being thrown bodily off the car, she wrote about the incident for black Baptist newspapers, thus beginning her career as a journalist. But her most abiding fight would be the one against lynching, a crime in which she saw all the themes she held most dear coalesce: sexuality, race, and the law.

Author: Paula J. Giddings
Publisher: Amistad Press
Published: 03/03/2009
Pages: 832
Binding Type: Paperback
Weight: 1.40lbs
Size: 8.00h x 5.32w x 1.47d
ISBN: 9780060797362
Award: Hurston/Wright LEGACY Award - Finalist

Review Citation(s):
New York Times Book Review 04/05/2009 pg. 20

About the Author
Giddings, Paula J.: -

Paula J. Giddings is the Elizabeth A. Woodson 1922 Professor in Afro-American Studies at Smith College and the author of When and Where I Enter and In Search of Sisterhood.