Ida B. Wells Barnett
This early black challenger of the South's Jim Crow segregation laws was born in 1862. With a college education and journalism experience, she fought against segregated transportation, prejudice in the Memphis school system and lynching. Her dedication to civil and human rights led her to become a co-founder of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. She was a reformer and one of the first leaders of her race to link the opression and exploitations of African-Americans to white economic opportunity. Ida died in Chicago in 1931.