Ida B. Wells Forced into Exile from Memphis 1892

After Ida B. Wells published editorials in the Memphis Free Speech challenging the rape justification for lynching, a white mob destroyed the newspaper's offices on May 27, 1892, and threatened her with death if she returned to Memphis. She was in Philadelphia at the time. Wells never returned to the South to live. She continued her anti-lynching campaign from New York and later Chicago, building an international movement.