COMMUNITY In 1883 two more of her siblings died and Wells decided to take up the offer of one of her aunts and move with her remaining two siblings to Memphis. She worked as a teacher in the Shelby county school system and during summer “vacations” she continued her education at Fist University in Nashville and Lemoyne-Owen in Memphis. Building on the courage she had affirmed earlier, in 1884, Ida entered into her journalism career and commenced her battle-ready stance for activism. On a day in May of that year, she purchased a firstclass ticket for (30 cents) to board the Chesapeake & Ohio train from Memphis to Nashville. She made a conscious decision to sit in the ladies’ car. However, black women were not considered ladies even when they had purchased first class tickets, they were confined to the colored car. When Wells was confronted by the white conductor and asked to move back to the colored car, she refused. The conductor proceeded to remove her from the car; she resisted-so much so that he called on the help of white passengers. With their help, he physically threw her from the car. This did not rest well with Wells; she sued C&O railroad and won the case in the Circuit Court of Shelby County. With her victory, the newspaper headlines read: “A Darky Damsel Obtains a Verdict for Damages…What it Cost to Put a Colored Teacher in a Smoking Car… $500.” [1] Regardless of the headline, Ida had won a victory for the race, for black women, and, in light of her damaged reputation, her true-womanhood pride” [2] Several years later, in 1887, the Tennessee Supreme Court overturned the lower court’s decision. Enter, Wells’ journalism career. Immediately after the incident on the C&O train, she wrote about the incident in The Living Way, a Black church weekly. While she continued to teach, her journalism career took off. She continued to write weekly for The Living Way and took on a position as editorial writer for the Evening Star in Washington, DC, and by 1889, she was the editor and co-owner of The Free Speech and Headlight, both black-owned newspapers-the latter located on the famous Beale Street in Memphis. It wasn’t long before she was fired by the Shelby County School District because of her www.zumi.com facebook.com/zumicollection Twitter @ZumiCollection The Urban Experience 19
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