Ordibnary to Extraordinary

The history of The Black Civil Rights Movement in the United States is a fascinating account of a group of human beings, forcibly taken from their homeland, brought to a strange new continent, and forced to endure countless inhuman atrocities. Forced into a life of involuntary servitude to white slave owners, African Americans were to face an uphill battle for many years to come. Who would face that battle? To say the fight for black civil rights “was a grassroots movement of ordinary people who accomplished extraordinary things” would be an understatement. Countless people made it their life’s work to see the progression of civil rights in America. People like W.E.B. DuBois, Marcus Garvey, A Phillip Randolph, Eleanor Roosevelt, and many others contributed to the fight although it would take ordinary people as well to lead the way in the fight for civil rights. This paper will focus on two people whose intelligence and bravery influenced future generations of civil rights organizers and crusaders. Ida B.Wells and Mary Mcleod Bethune were two African American women whose tenacity and influence would define the term “ordinary to extraordinary”.

Ida B. Wells could not have been more ordinary. She was born an urban slave during the Civil War. Her parents, both of mixed blood, were able to send her to Rust University where she would develop a stubborn personality that would

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enable her to surmount the many obstacles she would face. She would endure the untimely death of both parents as a teenager and would be forced to raise her

siblings alone.

A pivotal point in the journey of Mrs. Wells came in 1883 when she was physically removed from a first-class train car by a white train conductor who was attempting to enforce the Southern Jim Crow Laws segregating blacks from public transit and public facilities. She bit the conductors arm and later took a bite out of the railway company in court. On two separate occasions, Wells sued the railway company and was victorious. Unfortunately, the Tennessee Supreme Court overturned the lawsuits in 1887. Wells stated,” I have firmly believed that the law was on our side and would, when appealed to it, give us justice” . This statement seemed to exemplify the overall views of blacks that time. I could not imagine a more demoralizing turn of events. “Two Steps Forward and One Step Back”, is a phrase that is repeated throughout the fight for civil rights.

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An extraordinary person by definition is one who is far more than usual or exceptionally remarkable. Ida B Well’s life went above and beyond. As a black woman in the south she was a rarity. She was an educator and later became a

journalist. Her journalism gave her a voice, a voice in which she boldly spoke out in a time where black men as well as women were seldom heard.

The next tragic turn of events served as a platform for Ida B. Wells to lash out at the horrific act of lynching in the south in the late 1800’s. In 1892 three of her friends were lynched. Thomas Moss, Calvin McDowell, and Henry Stewart. These three men were owners of People's Grocery Company, and their small grocery had taken away customers from competing white businesses. A group of angry white men thought they would eliminate the competition so they attacked People's grocery, but the owners fought back, shooting one of the attackers. The owners of People's Grocery were arrested, but a lynch-mob broke into the jail, dragged them away from town, and brutally murdered all three. Again, this atrocity galvanized her determination.

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These events set in motion the subject that Ida B. Wells historically was most famous for; the abolition of lynch laws on the southern states. Wells set out, determined to do anything in her power to eradicate the lynching of blacks as well

as whites. Power was not a word synonymous with southern black women but Wells was gaining power through her journalism and speaking tours. She was also

responsible for the creation of black women’s groups such as the “National Association of Colored Women” (NACW), who were also instrumental in the campaign against lynching. Later, The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) in which Wells became Vice President, successfully campaigned to make lynching a federal crime.

From the meager beginnings of a southern black slave, to a journalist, educator, organizer, crusader for human rights, Ida B. Wells personified leadership and fortitude that was extremely rare amongst black people at the turn of the 19th century. History will tell us that she was responsible for the decline of lynching in the south