Ida Wells, journalist and civil rights activist, has been crusading against lynching and injustices in the world for almost 150 years now, through tradition carried on by her family, according to her great-grandson.
Dan Duster, the great-grandson of Wells, spoke to a small group of students and faculty at the University of Wisconsin about the legacy his great-grandmother started long ago. According to Duster, his parents and grandparents were also activists and thought their family history should be shared.
Duster’s lecture was promoted by Ethnic Studies week, which is an event connected with the ethnic studies program at the University of Arizona as well.
A large portion of the lecture by Duster covered the struggles his great-grandmother faced through her life and how they led her to become the legendary activist she is known as.
The oldest of eight, Wells volunteered to care for one of her younger siblings after her parents died of yellow fever when she was 16-years-old.
Wells eventually moved to Memphis, Tenn., from Holly Springs, Miss., to become a teacher. According to Duster, Wells bit a train conductor when he tried to forcibly make her give up her first class seat for a white woman. Duster said three men forcibly removed her from the train while the other passengers cheered on.
“Ida, a small black woman, sued the rail car company and won,” Duster said. A higher court eventually overturned the decision.
Wells became a journalist after she was fired from her job as a teacher for writing an article against deplorable conditions in the schools. As a journalist, Wells began investigating lynching in the south after three friends were lynched. According to Duster, the articles Wells wrote launched her crusade for justice.
“You have to stand up for justice and do the right thing,” Duster said. “If you don’t do anything to stop [injustices], you are a guilty bystander.”
Duster said he believes everyone has to take Wells’ life and actions as an example and do what is moral. If people address the injustices they encounter on a day-to-day basis, the world can be a much more equal place, he said.
“Somebody needs to do something,” Duster said, “You are that somebody.”
At UW, the ethnic studies program was started by students of color who picketed to get them, said Sandy Maga?a, director of Chican@ & Latin@ Studies. The students picketed because their stories were not being told, and their ethnicities were not represented by the faculty.
Today ethnic studies are not just seen as a requirement for graduation, Maga?a said.
“It’s fine to have an ethnic studies requirement, but that’s not all we are,” she added.
Ethnic Studies week is a collaboration between the Department of African American Studies, the Chican@ & Latin@ Studies Program, the Asian American Studies Program, the American Indian Studies Program, the Center for Jewish Studies and the Latin American, Caribbean and Iberian Studies Program.
