The Important Reason Ida B. Wells Printed "Free Speech" on Pink Paper
Her goal was to make her paper widely accessible. Here's why that matters
Why did Ida B. Wells, a Black journalist born in 1862 in Holly Springs, Mississippi, publish the "Free Speech" on pink paper? While some would assume she published on pink paper because she's a woman, this paper began before companies started conditioning Americans in 1930s and 40s advertisements to see pink as a "girly" color. To understand her editorial decision, we must first consider the social conditions of Black Americans, her core audience. Throughout her life, Wells witnessed Black people pleading for equal treatment and civility, often met with cruelty. As her writing would reveal, racial terror lynchings were pervasive, and so were the lies promoted to justify the practice.
In her 1892 pamphlet, Southern Horrors, Wells wrote, "Somebody must show that the Afro-American race is more sinned against than sinning, and it seems to have fallen upon me to do so." Of course, the fact that a Black woman could read or write at all was a sign of radical social change. Throughout the chattel slavery era, anti-literacy laws prohibited Black people from reading, writing, or teaching others. Those who dared to pick up a book and decipher its meaning could be whipped, imprisoned, or fined. Consequently, most could not document their experiences or read narratives expressed by others.
"Teaching slaves to read and write tends to excite dissatisfaction in their minds and to produce insurrection and rebellion," North Carolina legislation specified, expressing the fear of White enslavers. To maintain their control over Black people, they systematically deprived them of intellectual liberty. Of course, these rules didn't stop enslaved people from pursuing their freedom altogether. There were at least 250 documented uprisings from 1780 to 1864. However, these laws made it much more difficult for them to succeed. While White affluent governors could write a letter requesting more troops to squash a rebellion, Black people who liberated themselves had no means or opportunity to seek assistance. Thus, anti-literacy laws were effective at maintaining chattel slavery by silencing Black voices. After abolition, the black community experienced an aftershock. Only 10% of Black Americans were literate in 1870, the first five years after the Civil War. This racial literacy gap was a byproduct of racist conditions, but White people often treated Black people as if they were innately inferior.
James and Elizabeth, Ida's parents, learned how to read after the Civil War to ensure their children would have access to an education. Sadly, at 16, both her mother and father died during a yellow fever outbreak, leaving her to care for her five siblings. Wells sought employment as a teacher at a nearby school. Her experience of living as a Black woman in a society rooted in sexist, racist traditions contributed to her decision to become a journalist and an anti-lynching and voting rights activist. Wells published some of her most known works between 1892 and 1900, "Southern Horrors: Lynch Law in All its Phases," "The Red Record: Tabulated Statistics and Alleged Causes of Lynching in the United States," and "Mob Rule in New Orleans." She gave speeches sharing her research throughout the country as well as internationally, uncovering the racist persecution of Black Americans.
As part-owner of the Memphis Free Speech, Wells decided to print the pamphlet on pink paper. However, while she became a vocal advocate for the advancement of women's rights, the color was not a celebration of femininity, as many in the modern era would likely assume. Indeed, Ida B. Wells published the Memphis Free Speech on pink paper to mitigate illiteracy within the black community. While editors originally published the pamphlet on white paper, dishonest business tactics made it difficult for some to acquire. In her autobiography, Crusade for Justice, Wells noted that "we printed the Free Speech on pink paper to make it distinctive to a great many people who could not read." She learned that "some of the butchers were selling copies of the Police Gazette to many poor illiterates who wanted the Free Speech — they could not read for themselves, so they got to asking for 'the pink paper." While some Black people could not distinguish between publications based on their cover because they couldn't read, seeing the pink paper indicated they were purchasing the correct one.
In 1892 Ida B. Wells exposed an injustice endured by her friends, three Black men named Thomas Moss, Calvin McDowell, and William' Henry' Stewart, falsely accused of raping three White women. These men owned The People's Grocery Company. After a dispute between local Black and White children spilled over into an argument among adults, a rumor began that their store would be used to plan an attack against White residents. When the Black grocery store owners and other community members gathered to defend the store from mob violence, shots were exchanged, leaving three White men wounded. Without a formal investigation or trial, White residents arrested Moss, McDowell, and Stewart and lynched them shortly after. Wells' writing made it clear these men were unfairly targeted, attacked, and slain. One of the victims, Thomas Moss, shared memorable last words, "Tell my people to go west. There is no justice for them here." Afterward, Wells published an article that shared these words and encouraged Black people leave town. Historians documented that more than 6,000 African Americans left Memphis, Tennessee, soon after, heeding her advice. White residents responded by destroying the printing press for Free Speech and threatening Wells with bodily harm if she returned. The vast majority of Southerners didn't want to see a mirror held up at them to confront the ugly motivations behind lynchings.
While "pink" is often associated with "girls" or "women," that layer of meaning was only added in the years after Ida B. Wells' death in 1931. Her editorial decision to print the Free Speech on pink paper was not rooted in a feminist tradition but in her effort to promote literacy and make information more accessible for Black people and other readers. Despite the dangerous nature of her work, Wells persisted, believing that "the way to right wrongs is to shine the light of truth on them." As an educator and journalist, she considered not just the content of her writing but the context it was provided in and the ability of readers to access the work. Perhaps that’s a lesson we can apply in the modern era, as writers who shed light on racial injustice are tasked with the same goal of mitigating barriers to vital information. Of course, this is happening amid the backdrop of critical race theory bans that make it much harder for students to learn about figures like Ida B. Wells.
References
Executive Committee of the American Anti-Slavery Committee, Slavery and the International Slave Trade in the United States of America, London: Thomas Ward And Co. 1841. Anti-Slavery collection.
National Assessment of Adult Literacy (NAAL). National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) Home Page, a part of the U.S. Department of Education. (n.d.). https://nces.ed.gov/naal/lit_history.asp
Stamberg, S. (2014, April 1). Girls are taught to "think pink," but that wasn't always so. NPR. https://www.npr.org/2014/04/01/297159948/girls-are-taught-to-think-pink-but-that-wasnt-always-so
Madeo. (n.d.). Mar. 9, 1892: Three black grocers lynched in Memphis, Tennessee. calendar.eji.org. https://calendar.eji.org/racial-injustice/mar/09
Norment, L. (2020, March 12). Women's History Month: The fiery, brilliant, forward-thinking Ida B. Wells: Opinion. The Commercial Appeal. https://www.commercialappeal.com/story/opinion/2020/03/12/ida-b-wells-barnett-womens-history-month/5022307002/
U.S. Department of the Interior. (n.d.). Ida B. Wells (U.S. National Park Service). National Parks Service. https://www.nps.gov/people/idabwells.htm#:~:text=Using%20the%20name%20%22Iola%22%2C,and%20Headlight%20and%20Free%20Speech.
Urell, A. (2022, June 3). Ida B. Wells honored with posthumous Pulitzer. Equal Justice Initiative. https://eji.org/news/ida-b-wells-honored-with-posthumous-pulitzer/
Today in history — September 9. The Library of Congress. (n.d.). https://www.loc.gov/item/today-in-history/september-09/
Wells, I. B. (1892). Southern Horrors: Lynch law in all its phases.
Wells-Barnett, I. B., Duster, A., Ewing, E. L., & Duster, M. (2020). Crusade for justice: The autobiography of Ida B. Wells. The University of Chicago Press.
Williams, H. A. (2014). American slavery: A very short introduction. Oxford University Press, USA.
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I love discovering historical facts I am unaware of. Thanks for sharing and all that you do.
It makes you wonder why Republicans want to abolish the Department of Education in America, doesn't it. I see too many correlations.