Hello everybody! My name is Ida B. Wells-Barnett. I was born an African American slave on July 16, 1862 in Holly Springs, Mississippi. However, I was set free by the Civil War before I was even three years old. As a young child, I attended school at Shaw University, a school founded by a Methodist minister who wanted to help teach Southern African Americans. There, I was given reading and writing lessons and encouraged to be ladylike. These values were also taught to me at home. Each night, my siblings and I would have to complete our homework and then do our chores. We went to Sunday school each week and were raised to have a deep faith in God like our mother.
In 1878, when I was 16, yellow fever hit my town, Holly Springs, brutally. I was at my grandmother's when this happened and received a letter informing me that my parents had passed away. I headed home to see the children. Five out of six of my younger brothers and sisters had survived. Stanley, the baby, had died leaving Annie, Lily, Jim, George, and Eugenia. People had offered to take some of the kids, but I decided to care for them myself, so the family could stick together. I knew it was a tough responsibility, but I didn't want my family to be scattered among many homes.
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