To Keep the Waters Troubled: The Life of Ida B. Wells

When Frederick Douglass died in 1895, writes Linda O. McMurry, Ida B. Wells "was his logical heir apparent; they had collaborated closely on several projects. She was better known than W.E.B. DuBois and more ideologically compatible with Douglass than Booker T. Washington"--but it was considered too belittling to black "manhood" to have a woman leading African American politics.

Wells first rose to prominence when she wrote about her lawsuit against a railroad company that had kicked her out of a first-class seat. Throughout the 1890s, she crusaded vigorously against the rise of lynching as a tactic used by whites to intimidate the newly freed black populace. She also worked closely with the suffragist movement, but broke with white feminists who preferred to downplay or ignore ethnic dimensions to social justice. The woman who emerges from McMurry's intricately detailed biography, drawn extensively from Wells's own writings, is a fierce social advocate who easily serves as a role model for modern activists.