I've Done my Work: Ida B. Wells and The Women Pushing Back Today

Join us for a live episode of The United States of Anxiety: Gender and Power as WNYC’s Kai Wright explores the life of Ida B. Wells and her decision as a young woman activist to take on a deadly fight, and not let up.

It was barely a generation after the Civil War when Wells - then a young journalist - dared to expose dangerous truths about lynching in the United States. Southern whites were so rattled by her writing, they burned down Wells’ Memphis newspaper.

Forced into exile, she expanded her work into a long pamphlet called Southern Horrors: Lynch Law in All Its Phases, focused on anti-black terrorism in America.

Wells biographer Paula Giddings will join us to discuss what made Wells a woman who refused to stop, even in the face of constant threats on her life. Writer and cultural critic Jamilah Lamieux, along with other panelists, will have an intimate conversation about their own lives - walking in Wells' footsteps, pushing hard for change in a society that struggles with the idea of powerful women. A special guest will also perform a selection from Southern Horrors.

About the Hosts and Guests

Kai Wright is host of WNYC’s Narrative Unit and a columnist for The Nation magazine. He is also the host of WNYC’s podcasts The United States of Anxiety, Caught and There Goes the Neighborhood. Throughout his career, Kai's reporting and writing has focused on racial justice, economic inequity, healthcare and sexuality. He is the former editorial director of Colorlines and a longtime fellow of the Investigative Fund at the Nation Institute.

Paula Giddings is the author of Ida - A Sword Among Lions: Ida B. Wells and the Campaign Against Lynching. She is the Elizabeth A. Woodson Professor Emerita of Africana Studies at Smith College.

Jamilah Lamieux is a cultural critic and writer with a focus on issues of race, gender and sexuality. She is a leading millennial feminist thinker and new media maven. She is also the Vice President of News and Men’s Programming for iOne Digital, where she helped spearhead the creation of CASSIUS, a progressive digital lifestyle platform powered by young, Black content creators.

Видео I've Done my Work: Ida B. Wells and The Women Pushing Back Today канала The Greene Space at WNYC & WQXR