Ida B. Wells - Early Life and Education

Early Life and Education

Ida B. Wells was born in Holly Springs, Mississippi in 1862, just before President Abraham Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation. Her father James Wells was a carpenter and her mother was Elizabeth "Lizzie" Warrenton Wells. Both parents were enslaved until freed under the Proclamation, one year after she was born.

Ida's father James was a master at carpentry and known as a "race man", someone who worked for the advancement of blacks. He was very interested in politics, and was a member of the Loyal League. He attended public speeches and campaigned for local black candidates, but he never ran for office. Her mother Elizabeth was a cook for the Bolling household before her death from yellow fever. She was a religious woman who was very strict with her children. Wells' parents took their children's education very seriously. They wanted their children to take advantage of having the opportunity to be educated and attend school.

Wells attended a school for freed people called Shaw University, now Rust College in Holly Springs. She was expelled from the college for her rebellious behavior and temper after confronting the president of the college. While visiting her grandmother in the Mississippi Valley in 1878, she received word that her hometown of Holly Springs had suffered a yellow fever epidemic. At the age of 16, she lost both her parents and her 10-month old brother, Stanley, the youngest. The 1878 epidemic swept through the South with many fatalities.