James West Davidson - They Say: Ida B. Wells and the Reconstruction of Race

Between 1880 and 1930, Southern mobs hanged, burned, and otherwise tortured to death at least 3,300 African Americans. And yet the rest of the nation largely ignored the horror of lynching or took it for granted, until a young schoolteacher from Tennessee raised her voice. Her name was Ida B.Wells.In "They Say," historian James West Davidson recounts the first thirty years of this passionate woman's life--as well as the story of the great struggle over the meaning of race in post- emancipation America. Davidson captures the breathtaking, often chaotic changes that swept the South as Wells grewup in Holly Springs, Mississippi: the spread of education among the free blacks, the rise of political activism, the bitter struggles for equality in the face of entrenched social custom. As Wells came of age she moved to bustling Memphis, eager to worship at the city's many churches (black andwhite), to take elocution lessons and perform Shakespeare at evening soirees, to court and spark with the young men taken by ...

Between 1880 and 1930, Southern mobs hanged, burned, and otherwise tortured to death at least 3,300 African Americans. And yet the rest of the nation largely ignored the horror of lynching or took it for granted, until a young schoolteacher from Tennessee raised her voice. Her name was Ida B.Wells.In "They Say," historian James West Davidson recounts the first thirty years of this passionate woman's life--as well as the story of the great struggle over the meaning of race in post- emancipation America. Davidson captures the breathtaking, often chaotic changes that swept the South as Wells grewup in Holly Springs, Mississippi: the spread of education among the free blacks, the rise of political activism, the bitter struggles for equality in the face of entrenched social custom. As Wells came of age she moved to bustling Memphis, eager to worship at the city's many churches (black andwhite), to take elocution lessons and perform Shakespeare at evening soirees, to court and spark with the young men taken by ...