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A review by archytas
Crusade for Justice: The Autobiography of Ida B. Wells by Ida B. Wells-Barnett
3.75
"Our understanding overflows with larger-than-life tales of monumental men who, we are left to assume, changed the course of human civilization through sheer willpower. This book is not that. This is a book about a woman who sometimes did not have child care, who went on the road when she would rather have stayed home, who constantly fretted over fundraising, who sometimes offended people and sometimes was offended, who got seasick, who was told she would be nominated for a committee only to find out that W. E. B. Du Bois had removed her name from the roll without bothering to consult anyone. Ida B. Wells was a muckraker, and this is part of the muck." Preface by Eva L Ewing
When I was younger, my disdain for more recent history meant I pretty much stopped reading about the USA after the Reconstruction period, and as a result I missed out on a lot of the wonder that is Ida B Wells-Barnett. This autobiography was written as a longhand manuscript by this most accomplished journalist, and you can feel the words tumbling over themselves as Wells-Barnett gets across so much of what she wants to say. From a childhood in the middle of reconstruction, to an adolescence dominated by parenting her siblings, through to her drift into activism.
Some of the most interesting material deals with motherhood, and the challenges of combining this with activism. Wells-Barnett is assertive in promoting motherhood, and in regarding it as a profession in its own right, with as much skill and time required as being a teacher or a journalist. She acknowledges her own initial ambivalence about the state - and implies, interestingly, that marraige was in part a result of her exhaustion and inability to make an income from her political work - but has a converts zeal in encouraging other women to try it. It is also interesting that others, notably Susan B. Anthony, seek to encourage her to avoid such commitments, given the inevitable cost to her work. There is such a mess of class, racial and gendered positioning in all this.
The book drags a bit in places - a lengthy section in the middle is too directly cribbed from her speeches and articles given in England and towards the end she focuses on internal politicing within organisations a little - but on the whole, this is an accessible and empassioned call for a life in service to others.
When I was younger, my disdain for more recent history meant I pretty much stopped reading about the USA after the Reconstruction period, and as a result I missed out on a lot of the wonder that is Ida B Wells-Barnett. This autobiography was written as a longhand manuscript by this most accomplished journalist, and you can feel the words tumbling over themselves as Wells-Barnett gets across so much of what she wants to say. From a childhood in the middle of reconstruction, to an adolescence dominated by parenting her siblings, through to her drift into activism.
Some of the most interesting material deals with motherhood, and the challenges of combining this with activism. Wells-Barnett is assertive in promoting motherhood, and in regarding it as a profession in its own right, with as much skill and time required as being a teacher or a journalist. She acknowledges her own initial ambivalence about the state - and implies, interestingly, that marraige was in part a result of her exhaustion and inability to make an income from her political work - but has a converts zeal in encouraging other women to try it. It is also interesting that others, notably Susan B. Anthony, seek to encourage her to avoid such commitments, given the inevitable cost to her work. There is such a mess of class, racial and gendered positioning in all this.
The book drags a bit in places - a lengthy section in the middle is too directly cribbed from her speeches and articles given in England and towards the end she focuses on internal politicing within organisations a little - but on the whole, this is an accessible and empassioned call for a life in service to others.