Monument Unveiled To Activist, Journalist Ida B. Wells
CHICAGO (CBS/AP) -- A monument to journalist and civil rights activist Ida B. Wells-Barnett has been unveiled in Chicago.
Officially called The Light of Truth Ida B. Wells National Monument, the commemoration created by sculptor Richard Hunt was dedicated Wednesday in the Bronzeville neighborhood where Wells lived out her life.
The monument has three bronze columns that support intertwined bronze sheets twisted into coils and spirals.
Granddaughter Michelle Duster said traditional busts and statues of Wells were considered, but she and others pushing for the monument preferred something interpretative.
Wells, who was born a slave in 1862 in Mississippi, was a 30-year-old newspaper editor in Memphis, Tennessee, when she began her campaign against lynching. She died in 1931.
The city of Chicago unveiled a monument to honor civil rights advocate and investigative journalist Ida B. Wells on Wednesday. It's the first monument in the city dedicated to a Black woman. pic.twitter.com/3isqIVV3Vg
— CBS News (@CBSNews) June 30, 2021
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