The Nexus Archive

Opening the archive

Portrait of Ida B. Wells

Investigative Journalism and Civil Rights

Ida B. Wells

The Keeper of the Red Record · Jim Crow America, 1862-1931

Wells uses investigation, evidence, and fearless prose to expose lynching and racial terror.

  • Anti-lynching
  • Investigative truth
  • Racial terror
  • Journalism
  • Courage

Start with Southern Horrors

Life

Ida B. Wells was a journalist, activist, and anti-lynching crusader whose investigations exposed racial terror and the false narratives used to justify it. Her work combines moral courage, data, journalism, and political resistance.

The question

“What happens when a society hides murder behind respectable lies?”

Argued against

Lynching, racial terror, mob violence, propaganda, and cowardly silence.

Why Ida B. Wells matters

Wells gives Nexus a model of evidence under threat. She shows how truth-telling can become a form of resistance.

Where to start

Southern Horrors A fierce, short entry into Wells's anti-lynching journalism.

Works

  • Southern Horrors Essay · Intermediate Wells's anti-lynching investigation and argument against racial terror.
  • The Red Record Essay · Intermediate Wells's evidence-driven documentation of lynching and racial violence.
  • Mob Rule in New Orleans Essay · Intermediate Wells's 1900 pamphlet on Robert Charles, mob violence in New Orleans, public terror, and national lynching statistics.