Scholars Work to Highlight Contributions of Anti-Lynching Activist Wells - Higher Education: PHILADELPHIA — Three prominent scholars gathered to discuss the life and legacy of journalist and anti-lynching crusader Ida B. Wells in a two-hour panel discussion held last week in the heart of the City of Brotherly Love.
Sonia Sanchez, the poet laureate of Philadelphia, who retired in 1999 as the Laura Carnell professor of English and women’s studies at Temple University, was joined by historian John H. Bracey, Jr., the chairman of the W.E.B. Du Bois Department of Afro-American Studies at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, and Paula Giddings, a professor of Afro-American Studies at Smith College and the author of the best-selling biography called Ida: A Sword among Lions.
“Ida was a warrior for peace and justice in this world,” Sanchez told the more than 200 people in the audience. “She teaches us that we can be activists, we can be fulfilled. She helps us to understand, what does it mean to be human?”
