SOURCE: McMurry, Linda O. “Antilynching Lectures.” In To Keep the Waters Troubled: The Life of Ida B. Wells, pp. 169-87. New York: Oxford University Press, 1998.

In the following chapter from her biography of Wells-Barnett, McMurry discusses the social and rhetorical contexts of her subject's early anti-lynching lectures.

Soon after moving to Memphis, Ida B. Wells had become active in the literary and dramatic circles of that city's vibrant black community. Almost immediately she had discovered her love of the platform and stage. Although she toyed with the idea of becoming an actress, like other young women of her era, Wells soon realized that the stage could not provide adequate respectability or remuneration. Very few women speakers could support themselves on the lecture circuits either; for a long time, women had rarely been allowed to speak out in public at all. Nevertheless, while earning her living teaching and writing...