Pioneering Journalist Ida B. Wells Honored With Pulitzer Prize Citation

More than 85 years after her death, journalist and activist Ida B. Wells was awarded a special Pulitzer Prize Citation this week.

The 104th annual awards in journalism, letters, drama and music were announced on Monday, May 4. In addition to the 22 awards given, Ida B. Wells was singled out “for her outstanding and courageous reporting on the horrific and vicious violence against African-Americans during the era of lynching,” according to the press materials. The citation includes a bequest by the Pulitzer Prize board to be awarded to recipients in support of Ida’s mission. The awardees of the roughly $50,000 in funds has not yet been announced.

Born into slavery Mississippi in 1862, Wells began her career writing about race and politics in the South. In 1892, after the lynching of three black businessmen in Memphis, Wells turned her investigative and writing skills to exposing the horror of lynching. She put her own life at risk by continuing her reporting, ultimately making a move out of the South necessary.

She moved to Brooklyn for a few years, roughly 1892 to 1895, where she lived on Gold Street in Downtown Brooklyn. The community was known for abolitionist activities earlier in the 19th century. The street was co-named “Ida B. Wells Place” in March.

Wells ultimately settled in Chicago, marrying activist Ferdinand L. Barnett in 1895. She continued her work until her death in 1931, leaving a legacy as a pioneering and fearless journalist and an early civil rights crusader.

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