Ida Bell Wells was born July 16, 1862 in Holly Springs, MS. Her parents, James and Lizzie Wells, were enslaved in Holly Springs when she was born. Her father was the son of a white man and one of his slaves named Peggy. At age 18, James went to Holly Springs to learn carpentry and he worked as a hired out slave. According to Wells, her father knew very little of the cruelties of slavery. 

Her mother, on the other hand, was taken from her family and sold to an architect, Mr. Bolling, in Holly Springs, where she became his cook. Ida’s mother and father met when they were both enslaved at the architect’s home (now called Bolling- Gatewood House) in Holly Springs. About six months after Ida was born, she and her parents were freed by the Emancipation Proclamation. 

After Ida’s parents were freed, they stayed in Holly Springs. Her father, James, founded a carpentry business (this happened after he quit working for Mr. Bolling. Bolling was pressuring him to vote Democratic and when he refused, he came back to a locked shop. James left the shop, went downtown to buy new tools, and rented a house across the street to open his own shop.) Ida’s mother, Lizzie, was a famous cook in the city. Both of her parents were active in the Republican Party.

Side note: There was a time when the Republican and Democratic parties had opposite platforms, and over the years they switched to what we know today. According to livescience.com, during the 1860s, Republicans were Northerners in favor of expansion of federal power. It was Lincoln’s party. The Democrats were Southerners, who did not want the federal government to have all the power, they believed it belonged to the individual states. The Republicans passed laws to protect African Americans and fought for social justice after the Civil War. The party lines began to blur in the early 1900s when a Democrat, William Jennings Bryan, emphasized the government’s role in social justice reform through expansion of the government, a traditionally Republican stance. So why did this happen? After the Civil War, new western states were acquired and both parties were vying for their attention. The Democrats saw that using the federal government to fund social programs and benefits was beneficial for their platform in trying to win over western states. The Republicans naturally took the opposing position and called for a hands off approach. They began to appeal to big business. Big business originally needed more government help with infrastructure, currency, and tariffs, but once established, the hands off approach was better. It allowed them more freedoms to do what they wanted. 

James Wells became a trustee in Shaw College (now Rust College), a school for newly freed slaves. The school was established in 1866 for adults and children, by the Freedman’s Aid Society, of which James Wells was a member. It was originally called Shaw College after Reverend Shaw, who donated $10,000 to the new school. In 1915, in order to not confuse it with Shaw University, they renamed it Rust College, after Richard Rust, the secretary of the Freedman’s Aid Society. 

As time went on and students progressed, the school went from having elementary and secondary classes to having high school and college courses. In 1878, the first two students graduated from the college department. It was at Shaw College that Ida received the first of her formal education. 

Tragedy struck when Ida was only 14 (there’s speculation as to if she was 14 or 16. I’ve read both but Ida’s autobiography said 14, so we’re going with that). Both her parents and one sibling contracted Yellow Fever and passed away. Holly Springs’ mayor refused to quarantine the city from Memphis after the fever broke out and people came down to get away from the city, bringing the disease with them.