Bell Hooks And Ida B Wells Analysis
During an unseemly period in American history, thousands and thousands of black people were tortured and hung in trees—their bodies left to rot while on public display. Oftentimes, the bodies were mutilated and body parts were passed from one hand to the other among a raucous crowd of white people, which included women and children. The practice of lynching began long before the Civil War, but during the years of Reconstruction, lynching was one way in which whites terrorized blacks in an attempt to maintain the status quo in terms of economic, social, and political oppression. Many blacks in the American South lived their daily existence with the threat of being lynched at the whim of Southern white men. Under the pretext of the protection
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Wells would’ve been comrades in arms (maybe no gun for bell hooks!) if they were contemporaries. I can’t help but wonder if hooks studied Ida B. Wells as she developed her feminist theories. There are many, many similarities between these two women in terms of feminist theory and their work against ideologies of oppression and domination. As I read through Wells’ autobiography, I was constantly reminded of bell hooks. For example, when bell hooks talks about her feminist theory, she places emphasis on its intersection with race. Ida B. Wells’ life-long feminist campaign against oppression began when she was only nineteen years old. One evening Ida bought a first class ticket and boarded the train for her weekly ride home from work. When the conductor came around to take tickets, he ordered her to move to the blacks’ car on the train. When she refused, the train was stopped and she was unceremoniously thrown off (McMurry 24). Ida believed in the system of due process and took her matter to the courts where she eventually lost and had to pay for all the court costs. Wells noted in her autobiography, “None of my people had ever seemed to feel that it [the train incident] was a race matter and that they should help me with the fight” (Duster 21). While Ida felt despair from this incident, it was her retelling of the event via a newspaper column that spurred her towards a life of journalistic activism (McMurry 30). When it came to writing, Ida B. Wells shared her feminist perspective in a manner similar to bell hooks. Hooks said she writes “with the intent to share ideas in a way that makes them accessible to the widest possible audience . . . and believes that lack of accessibility diminishes our work’s power to make meaningful interventions in theory and practice” (Foss et al. 75). Hooks’ ambivalent attitude towards academia compelled her to adapt her writing for her audience, who were primarily uneducated. For
Wells would’ve been comrades in arms (maybe no gun for bell hooks!) if they were contemporaries. I can’t help but wonder if hooks studied Ida B. Wells as she developed her feminist theories. There are many, many similarities between these two women in terms of feminist theory and their work against ideologies of oppression and domination. As I read through Wells’ autobiography, I was constantly reminded of bell hooks. For example, when bell hooks talks about her feminist theory, she places emphasis on its intersection with race. Ida B. Wells’ life-long feminist campaign against oppression began when she was only nineteen years old. One evening Ida bought a first class ticket and boarded the train for her weekly ride home from work. When the conductor came around to take tickets, he ordered her to move to the blacks’ car on the train. When she refused, the train was stopped and she was unceremoniously thrown off (McMurry 24). Ida believed in the system of due process and took her matter to the courts where she eventually lost and had to pay for all the court costs. Wells noted in her autobiography, “None of my people had ever seemed to feel that it [the train incident] was a race matter and that they should help me with the fight” (Duster 21). While Ida felt despair from this incident, it was her retelling of the event via a newspaper column that spurred her towards a life of journalistic activism (McMurry 30). When it came to writing, Ida B. Wells shared her feminist perspective in a manner similar to bell hooks. Hooks said she writes “with the intent to share ideas in a way that makes them accessible to the widest possible audience . . . and believes that lack of accessibility diminishes our work’s power to make meaningful interventions in theory and practice” (Foss et al. 75). Hooks’ ambivalent attitude towards academia compelled her to adapt her writing for her audience, who were primarily uneducated. For