Ida B. Wells

Ida B. Wells (1862–1931) was a journalist who was not afraid to bring the truth to light. Born around the time of emancipation, and living through an era when discrimination and violence against Black people were open and public, she confronted injustice head-on, taking up the pen as her weapon.

The reverse of the coin bears a portrait of Ida B. Wells, and beneath it, arranged side by side, are the three roles she lived: “Journalist,” “Suffragist,” and “Civil Rights Activist.” These three words alone clearly reveal in what capacity, and for what, she fought throughout her whole life.

Wells in particular led the movement against lynching, the brutal violence of executing people without any trial. Risking danger, she investigated the facts and reported them in articles, thrusting before people’s eyes a truth the world had pretended not to see. At the same time she raised her voice for women’s suffrage, pushing against two layers of barriers at once as a Black woman.

The price of bringing the truth to light was by no means light. Her writing drew threats and backlash, but instead of choosing silence, Wells chose the path of making the facts known farther and louder. Her courage became a firm foundation on which the later American civil rights movement would stand.

Savoring the three words inscribed beneath the portrait, one sees how the pen of a single person who records the truth can change the world. Ida B. Wells’s quarter helps us long remember the power held by “courageous record.”