MEMPHIS, Tenn. — The coveted Pulitzer Prizes were announced Monday – two weeks late because of the coronavirus pandemic. The Pulitzers are awarded annually for superior work in journalism, fiction, and non-fiction writing, music, poetry, and drama. But Monday’s prizes also included a special citation with a distinct Memphis connection. It was awarded posthumously to Ida B. Wells – for her courageous fight against the lynchings of African Americans in the late 1800s in and around Memphis.
Wells was born in Holly Springs in 1862. She later moved to Memphis and taught school before taking up the cause against lynchings – including the infamous killings of the owners of Peoples Grocery in South Memphis. She started the Memphis Free Speech and Headlight newspaper, and wrote powerful editorials destroying the myth that black men were being lynched because they were rapists. While Wells was out of town, an angry white mob destroyed her newspaper building and threatened to lynch her if she returned. She never did.
Eventually settling in Chicago, Wells continued her advocacy for civil rights, women’s rights, and human rights until her death in 1931.
The citation includes a $50,000 award that will be presented later.
The Pulitzers did not exist when Wells was afflicting the comfortable and comforting the afflicted in Memphis. But the Pulitzer board should be commended for finally recognizing the brilliant work of one of the most significant figures in Memphis history. And that’s my point of view.