9 Must-See Landmarks That Celebrate Women

4. Ida B. Wells-Barnett House – Chicago, IL

Prominent African-American activist and journalist Ida B. Wells-Barnett lived in this stately Chicago home from 1919 to 1929. As a journalist, she was best known for her investigative pieces on lynching in the South during the time of Jim Crow, which sought to prove that unlike white people at the time liked to suggest, lynching’s were used as a way of controlling the population, rather than punishing wrongdoing. Because of her writing, her newspaper presses were destroyed by a mob.

At the same time as she was actively writing, Wells-Barnett was also a suffragist, abolitionist, and speaker whose international speaking tours were attended by large crowds. Although her name was not written on the register of founders, she was instrumental in the creation of the NAACP. Her home entered the National Registry of Historic Places in 1974, although it remains a private residence.

After years of fundraising, @MichelleDuster, the great-granddaughter of Ida B. Wells writes about what made it possible for the civil rights pioneer to gain long overdue recognition in her adopted hometown of Chicago this summer. https://t.co/qUqPXA1aeN

— The Chicago Reporter (@ChicagoReporter) August 7, 2018