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Ida B. Wells

Citations needed

 * Her paternal grandmother, Peggy Wells (née Peggy Cheers; 1814–1887), along with other friends and relatives, stayed with her siblings and cared for them during the week while Wells was teaching.


 * But when Peggy Wells died from a stroke and her sister Eugenia died, Wells accepted the invitation of her aunt Fanny and moved with her two youngest sisters to Memphis in 1883.


 * A White mob ransacked the Free Speech office, destroying the building and its contents. James L. Fleming, co-owner with Wells and business manager, was forced to flee Memphis; and, reportedly, the trains were being watched for Wells' return. Creditors took possession of the office and sold the assets of Free Speech. Wells had been out of town, vacationing in New York; but never returned to Memphis. A "committee" of white businessmen, reportedly from the Cotton Exchange, located Rev. Nightingale – who, despite having sold his interest to Wells and Fleming in 1891 – assaulted him and forced him at gun point to sign a letter retracting the May 21 editorial.


 * Wells subsequently accepted a job with New York Age and continued her anti-lynching campaign from New York. For the next three years, she resided as a guest in Harlem at the home of Timothy Thomas Fortune (1856–1928) and wife, Carrie Fortune (née Caroline Charlotte Smiley; 1860–1940).


 * She was a spokeswomen (spelling) and an advocate for women being successful in the workplace, having equal opportunities, and creating a name for themselves


 * Generally southern states and white juries refused to indict any perpetrators for lynching, although they were frequently known and sometimes shown in the photographs being made more frequently of such events.


 * That year she started work with The Chicago Conservator, the oldest African-American newspaper in the city.