EP 4 Ida B. Wells: Anti-Lynching Crusader | Women & Resistance

In this episode of Women and Resistance, we explore the life and legacy of Ida B. Wells, a pioneering journalist and activist known for her fierce opposition to lynching and her commitment to social justice. 

The discussion covers her early life, the impact of racism and slavery, her groundbreaking work in journalism, and her enduring influence on civil rights movements. 

Wells's story is a testament to the power of activism and the importance of telling one's own story in the fight for justice.

Takeaways

*Ida B. Wells was a pioneering journalist and activist.
*Her early life was shaped by the realities of slavery and racism.
*Lynching was a significant issue that impacted the Black community.
*Wells used journalism as a tool for activism and social change.
*She faced legal challenges in her fight against injustice.
*Wells wrote under the pen name 'Iola' to address racial issues.
*Her work highlighted the importance of community and collective action.
*Wells' legacy continues to inspire modern activists.
*She emphasised the need for Black people to tell their own stories.
*Wells believed in the power of informed communities to effect change.

Chapters

00:00 Introduction to Ida B. Wells
05:25 The Impact of Lynching and Journalism
10:13 The Power of the Press
15:02 Resistance Against Racial Injustice
19:51 Ida B. Wells: A Trailblazer in Journalism
26:46 The Journey of Passion and Purpose
32:33 Understanding Lynching and Its Historical Context
37:44 The Power of Storytelling and Advocacy
42:46 Building Community and Support Networks
47:36 Lessons from History and the Call to Action

Welcome  to Women and Resistance, a powerful podcast where we honour the courage, resilience, and revolutionary spirit of women across the globe. Hosted by Aya Fubara Eneli Esq and Adesoji Iginla...

You're listening to Women and Resistance with Aya Fubara Eneli Esq and Adesoji Iginla—where we honour the voices of women who have shaped history through courage and defiance...Now, back to the conversation.

That’s it for this episode of Women and Resistance. Thank you for joining us in amplifying the voices of women who challenge injustice and change the course of history. Be sure to subscribe, share, and continue the conversation. Together We Honour the past, act in the present, and shape the future. Until next time, stay inspired and stay in resistance!

Transcript

Adesoji Iginla (00:01.698)
Yes, greetings, greetings, greetings, and welcome to another episode of Women and Resistance. This is the podcast where we center women who refuse to be silent. And today is no exception. Today we examine the life of considered one of the most dangerous women in American history, dangerous to white supremacy, of course. And that will be none other than Ida B. Wells.

by net.

That's it. I am Adesu Jiginla, and with me today we have IW Wells. Welcome, man.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (00:45.913)
Good evening. Thank you for having me.

Adesoji Iginla (00:49.346)
Yes, thank you for honoring our call. Let's start from the beginning.

You're known as a journalist.

which is one of the reasons why a lot of what you did is recorded although some of it is lost due to reasons we'll go into later. But that said, being a journalist, could you walk us through what it was like for you growing up, your parents and your background?

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (01:28.047)
First, thank you so much for the honor of this invitation. During my lifetime, I was honored to travel the breadth and width of this.

country called the United States of America, speaking on issues that many of us were not aware of, at least not to the extent that we should have been. And I eventually even traveled to England to also

Adesoji Iginla (01:48.818)
Hmm.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (02:08.431)
shed more light on the plight of the Negro in America and the sin of lynching and the impact on our community.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (02:25.527)
I was to attend another conference, a peace conference, after World War I in Paris, France. But as this country has been wont to do, the president of the United States of America at that point, who was Woodrow Wilson,

denied my passport application and also denied there were 11 of us who had been chosen to go to this peace conference. And we felt it was important to attend so that we could, if we're talking about matters of peace across the world, we could speak about the issues of the Negro in the United States of America.

and bring worldwide attention to atra veils so that if this were truly about world peace, we would be part of that conversation. Well.

This was after a long life of shedding light on uneasy truths in America. And so the government denied all of us.

permission, the passports that we needed to travel to this conference. William Trotter decided to go anyway, but he disguised himself as a cook on a ship. And that's how he made it to Paris. And when he got there, he was roundly ignored and not given any kind of platform.

Adesoji Iginla (04:27.616)
recognition.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (04:28.729)
from which to make our case. I bring that up only because as we talk about my life and the reason I accepted this invitation tonight is because we keep going through the same cycles, if you will. And what was clear to me and the reason why I started to write my biography, which I hadn't quite finished,

Adesoji Iginla (04:47.672)
Hmm.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (04:59.319)
when I made my transition, was because I had met a young woman, 25 years of age, and from her question, I realized she knew nothing about the work that I had done. And for me, it was important that those who have lived the experience tell the stories.

And so I bring up this history and I'll come back to the question you asked me. Because it's not just about my life. My life as a journalist, my life as what they would now today call an investigative reporter was always about...

telling the truths that were too often covered over or not addressed at all. And quite often, even we

Adesoji Iginla (05:55.598)
Hmm.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (06:02.507)
Negroes as we were called then were ignorant of what was happening to us.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (06:14.807)
And so when you now hear about Paul Robeson.

Adesoji Iginla (06:21.208)
Okay. Yes.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (06:21.687)
and the group that wanted to go to the United Nations to present, we cry genocide, right? And when you hear about Malcolm X and when you see so many other iterations of Black people, whether in this country or across the diaspora or in Africa, attempt to bring their issues to the world stage.

We understand that we just didn't start doing that today. We have a history and we should know that history. Haven't said that. I was born Ida Bell Wells.

Adesoji Iginla (06:55.214)
Hmm.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (07:08.783)
on July 16th, 1862 in a place called Holly Springs, Mississippi. Always important to pay attention to these dates because that would mean that I was born into slavery, wouldn't it?

Adesoji Iginla (07:19.532)
missed.

Adesoji Iginla (07:27.662)
That would be the case,

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (07:32.013)
My parents were James and Elizabeth Wells, Elizabeth also known as Lizzie, and my father was the product of a rape.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (07:49.667)
a white enslaver raping his black enslaved mother.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (07:57.889)
My parents were enslaved.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (08:05.133)
I suppose I should call him a man, Spires Bowling. By the way, I will work very hard today as we speak and as I recount years of my life. I will work very hard today.

to hold back on the one area, traits if you will, that some said often got me into trouble. And I saw it in one of my children as well. And that is that in some circles I was known to have a fiery temper. But hopefully amongst friends there would be no reason for that to flare up.

Adesoji Iginla (08:45.902)
Turn back. Yeah.

Adesoji Iginla (08:53.762)
Yeah.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (08:58.849)
My father was a skilled carpenter and my mother was a cook and I was the first of their children. My mother was known for her discipline and her dignity. She did not suffer fools kindly.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (09:22.177)
My childhood was definitely shaped by reconstruction, which as you may know, and if you don't know, then here's an assignment because before I really embraced my, love of my life in terms of my career journalism, I was a school teacher. Tell you a little bit about that in a second here. But I watched my father as a young girl.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (09:52.493)
And I saw how he moved. I saw that he was involved in what I would later understand was politics.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (10:03.937)
And he helped found Rust College, a school for nearly freed Black students. Education was sacred in my home. My parents could not read and write at the end of the Civil War, but they sent their children to school and they learned right alongside of us.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (10:29.785)
We were also taught through everything that we experienced as much as our parents try to shield us from the worst of.

Adesoji Iginla (10:39.192)
society.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (10:40.877)
racism and the hatred from white people. We learned that freedom was very fragile.

I recall my father.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (10:58.457)
taking up his right to vote.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (11:03.439)
And at that time, although we had quote unquote been freed, we still lived on the property of our.

previous enslaver. Many black people did. They stayed on as sharecroppers. Because where were you to go with this newfound freedom and no land and no food and no tools at the time?

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (11:33.596)
and this enslaver forbade my father from voting.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (11:44.471)
and my father being the race man that he is and he was, he went and voted anyhow. And upon his return, my father had been locked out of his workshop where he did his carpentry work.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (12:03.927)
And so my father, with the money he had saved, went and bought his own tools and hired himself out to make a living.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (12:22.121)
I recall many evenings when the men and sometimes women would gather in our home.

and my father would call on me to read the newspaper. Information was important to us. We needed to understand what was happening in the world around us.

It therefore baffles me that today, many generations later, some of you have not had a newspaper cast a shadow on your stoop in years. I know, I know you can get your news from many sources, but even as convenient as it is.

Many of you don't follow the news of your time. And what that results in is people who are deeply unaware of the issues impacting them and the decisions being made that shape their lives. And if you're ignorant, how do you then effectively plan? How do you build a nation?

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (13:47.821)
newspapers were very important to us in our time.

getting ahead of myself. But do you know?

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (14:01.667)
that after my friend Thomas Moss.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (14:08.365)
and two others were killed.

in Memphis, Tennessee because they had the gall, the mitigated gall to open a grocery that served their own people in their own community.

And the white owners of the supermarket wanted all that business to come to them, always threatened by our progress. Do you know that when I started to write columns and articles in my paper telling the people of Memphis, the black people of Memphis, to move out of the town?

Adesoji Iginla (14:55.266)
Why?

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (14:57.391)
Why? Because of the limchings. Because we could go other places and create a different livelihood for us. Because we had no safety, no freedom in that town. The officials had made it very clear.

Adesoji Iginla (14:58.52)
Yes. OK.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (15:13.923)
The power of the newspaper, the power of journalists. Do you know that in scant six months, over 6,000 black people, Negroes as we called, we were called then, moved from Memphis of about 30,000 who at that time lived there. That is significant.

Adesoji Iginla (15:38.178)
of information.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (15:42.647)
It started to impact so many of the white businesses, so much so that they came and asked me to stop.

Adesoji Iginla (15:45.048)
the economy.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (15:54.317)
telling the Negroes to leave.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (16:00.131)
It's the power of journalism.

And today, what are we doing?

And for those who are writing, who's paying attention? How would you know what is going on?

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (16:19.959)
Let me get back to my personal story, but as you can see...

There is no Ida B. Wells, Ida B. Wells Barnett as I would later be known. Can't tell the story of my life without telling the story of my, of the times in which I lived in and what was happening to my people.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (16:46.243)
And I dare say that if you consider yourself of the Negro race or the Black race or the African American race or whatever we're calling ourselves these days, and it is possible for you.

to tell your life story? And you are the singular being?

divorced from the lives of your people and the politics of your lifetime.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (17:26.327)
I wonder.

Hmm, perhaps.

Perhaps you would be like some of the elite Negroes that I came across and I would share more about them.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (17:44.887)
Nonetheless, in 1878, while I was visiting my grandmother,

I again learned through the papers that a yellow fever epidemic had torn through Mississippi.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (18:10.445)
make my way back home as soon as I could and upon arriving back home.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (18:25.891)
I found out that both my parents had died within days of each other.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (18:37.431)
I was 16 years old.

the oldest.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (18:55.171)
was paralyzed.

needed extra care.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (19:08.791)
well-meaning relatives suggested that the best thing to do would be to separate us kids. Fan us out to bear as family members.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (19:27.439)
I refused.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (19:34.691)
We had lost our parents. We were not going to lose each other.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (19:42.167)
What was I to do as a 16 year old girl? My parents had left us our home and about $300, which was nothing to sneeze at back then, but also not a whole lot.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (20:02.977)
not for an extended period of time with no additional income coming in.

but I had been a very bright student.

And so I put my hair up in a bun.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (20:21.753)
pulled my dress down.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (20:26.083)
held my carriage upright.

And I went about securing a teaching position and lied about my age just to make sure that I could keep my family intact.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (20:47.951)
16.

Blah.

female or

in Mississippi. The same Mississippi one of your guests sang about. Mississippi, god damn.

Adesoji Iginla (21:01.87)
Thanks.

Adesoji Iginla (21:07.382)
Yeah.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (21:13.603)
I understand you call this women and resistance. Perhaps we can trace my resistance all the way back to this very unfortunate event in my life.

Adesoji Iginla (21:24.856)
True, true.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (21:33.933)
The job that I got as a teacher was six miles from home.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (21:41.965)
I would teach all week, take the train and come back home. And then the entire weekend I would spend washing and doing laundry and cooking and cleaning the home and getting things ready for my siblings to be able to last the week without me being physically present because I had to earn a living for us.

I would board the first class lady's car on the Chesapeake and Ohio Railroad train.

Well, it was 1884.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (22:22.861)
Reconstruction was for all intents and purposes over. And white people were pushing back with everything they had in them.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (22:36.589)
And here comes a white conductor, insisting that I move to the colored car.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (22:46.167)
I rode in the ladies car because there was a certain decorum. You were not subject to men being loud and gambling and cussing. Were black women not to be protected and be in genteel circumstances like white women?

was our virtue.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (23:13.91)
any less.

valuable

Adesoji Iginla (23:20.204)
too.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (23:22.915)
The white conductor told me to move to the colored car and I refused. And so he put his hands on me.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (23:34.839)
and attempted to drag me out of my seat. And I put my teeth on him.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (23:43.725)
I bit him. Yes, I did.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (23:49.325)
And so when we got to the next stop, he got reinforcement and it took three of them, battering and bruising me and ripping my clothes to get me off that train.

and those white women cheered and clapped.

Adesoji Iginla (24:13.533)
Surprise, surprise.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (24:15.065)
So I sued. I sued the railroad company in a Memphis court.

Adesoji Iginla (24:22.048)
in 1884.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (24:24.943)
And I won $500 in damages. How many of you today are so afraid?

to speak up against injustice to you or anyone else. How many of you just lay down and take whatever is dished out?

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (24:54.936)
Well.

Remember I told you about these Negroes? And I asked if you can tell your story. And somehow that story bypasses what was happening to black people during your time. I'm gonna look at you ask scants.

Well, I had a black lawyer representing me.

And then when it came time...

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (25:29.687)
I found out that he had been bribed and it was his goal to intentionally lose the case for me.

Adesoji Iginla (25:41.134)
Wow. Even back then.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (25:44.431)
So I actually had to hire a white lawyer to represent me.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (25:56.311)
And I wrote in my diary, I wrote all I wrote extensively in my diary. I wrote about my disappointment, that one of my race.

would be so easily compromised.

when the very thing I was fighting for.

was not just about me. Although God knows the damages that they were told to pay would have gone a long way to help me with my family.

Adesoji Iginla (26:23.34)
collective.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (26:35.939)
But it would have helped to push back Jim Crow.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (26:44.075)
No.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (26:48.665)
He was just gonna sell me down the river. As too many of our people have sold us down the river before.

Like I said, we won in the Memphis courts and then the lawyers for the railroad came back.

and they offered to pay me less than what the damages I had won were. Instead, if I did not accept their offer, they would appeal it to the Tennessee Supreme Court.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (27:24.109)
I felt confident in my case and in the evidence that we were going to provide.

so my white attorney represented me and the Supreme Court did not look at any of our evidence. In fact, they decided that I had set out to harass the railroad company and they ruled against me and awarded

fees and attorney fees in excess of $200 to the railroad companies that I was told I had to pay.

What a reversal of fortunes.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (28:24.833)
nonetheless.

Adesoji Iginla (28:26.41)
was the initial award to you.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (28:29.487)
$500 to me.

Adesoji Iginla (28:32.91)
So was reversed.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (28:34.605)
Yes, and I was then required to pay.

over $200 to the railroad company because the Supreme Court determined, in spite of all the evidence, that I had set out to harass.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (28:58.649)
the railroad.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (29:10.031)
Peace.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (29:15.183)
Thanks.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (29:18.681)
Government sanctioned acts are designed to break our spirit, designed to keep us in a place of inferiority, designed to make us believe that we are less than so that we stop asking for or fighting for anything more than what they decide to mid out.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (29:47.683)
But...

No matter how many times I got knocked down, it was my goal to always get back up and I did. Now I know you see me as an old woman and the gray hair and even the eyebrows have gone gray. Did not always look this way, though it is an honor and a privilege to age. I was once

one of the most courted women in Memphis and beyond.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (30:27.823)
I could easily name at least 10 very eligible bachelors who...

Adesoji Iginla (30:35.64)
So do your hand.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (30:35.843)
were very interested in me and many marriage proposals, but I did not have much use at that time for that. And in fact,

In my diary, I write about being warned to be more sociable. And I did attempt to do so. But even that got me into some trouble as well. I had a proclivity for nice clothes and I would often go to uptown to wear the nice dress shops wear. And the whites frowned at it. And the Negroes did too.

It just seemed like I didn't know how to stay in my place. I also loved the theater.

Adesoji Iginla (31:22.734)
You

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (31:30.337)
I went to see production of Othello, there's so many others as well. And each time, one time I remember going with Albert, I had so much fun. And when we were done, I was teaching Sunday school, and Sunday's at church. But that Saturday night,

my goodness, we went back to a friend's house and as your people would say, the younger folk today, we partied till the morning. Now, I still went to church and I still carried out my duties as a Sunday school teacher. But I got a stern talking to for news traveled rather fast.

Adesoji Iginla (32:18.262)
So who is Albert? You mentioned Albert.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (32:18.626)
and

just one of my suitors at the time. And some of the deacons at the church were rather concerned about my behavior. Here's a young woman with no parents and

Perhaps they had heard that I had imbibed and that's not really a conversation that I am going to get into at this time. But then nonetheless, they impressed upon me the importance of me conducting myself as a role model for the young people under my tutelage. And I did make some adjustments.

Adesoji Iginla (33:06.78)
Yeah.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (33:12.047)
but I did not marry at that time anyway.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (33:18.921)
I began writing.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (33:23.979)
even as I was pursuing my career as a teacher. And I wrote under the pen name, Iola.

Adesoji Iginla (33:28.766)
Mm.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (33:43.681)
I had passed my test to become a school teacher in Memphis and I had been assigned to the first grade class at city's all Black Saffron School.

Adesoji Iginla (33:52.19)
Hmm.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (33:59.307)
Now my aunt had moved to California, my aunt, and she had asked to take two of my siblings just to help relieve some of the pressure that was on me. And so she took Annie and Lily with her. And then I had Eugenia. Eugenia was my sister who had the

Adesoji Iginla (33:59.79)
Okay.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (34:25.839)
paralysis. so, Eugenia, James and George were living on Aunt Belle's farm and then I was on my own in Memphis but sending money back home. But getting this job in Memphis, my salary rose to $60 a month.

Adesoji Iginla (34:40.262)
Hmm. Well.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (34:49.551)
I averaged about 70 pupils in my class. And of course living in the city was very expensive. And I was sending money not just to my aunt Fanny who was in California to assist with my siblings, I was also sending money to my aunt Belle to also assist with my siblings. And so I had money going out in so many different directions.

but it was still exhilarating finally to be on my own as a young woman. And I enjoyed, like I said, a very active social life. Now my writing would soon gather me some attention. Of course, back in those days, few black women went into journalism.

Adesoji Iginla (35:32.734)
Life,

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (35:45.613)
We were teachers, maybe nursing profession. Of course, we were domestics, but not necessarily journalism. And what I had done is in coming up with IOLA, I was actually writing Ida, but I'd written it so fast that the D looked like two letters, O and L.

And that is where Aeola actually came from, in case you were wondering.

Adesoji Iginla (36:15.182)
Amen.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (36:22.261)
Now even then the few Black female journalists that we had would write on the topics that were considered women's topics. So maybe book reviews or school news or articles about marriage and children. But I, I wrote about racial issues which was unheard of. And Ayola was likely to criticize

white people and also black people.

in one of my first articles, was titled, The Functions of Leadership. This was published in the Living Way on September 12th in 1885.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (37:16.591)
I complained about these bourgeois black folk who did nothing to alleviate the poverty and the misery of their own people.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (37:33.121)
In another article, which is titled, Iola on Discrimination, I criticized whites for bigotry against black people. And I criticized black people for not fighting segregation more, for not having the gumption. Well, some of my criticism was also directed to the leaders of the school where I was employed.

Adesoji Iginla (38:00.986)
Ha ha ha ha.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (38:05.347)
That didn't go over so well. But as my articles began to be covered or carried in many other papers across the country, reprinted in places like the Little Rock, Arkansas, the Little Rock Sun in Arkansas, the Bee in Washington, D.C.,

and the New York Freeman, which was at the time headed by T. Thomas Fortune. He was enthralled with my articles and he wanted to meet, as he said, the brilliant Ayola. And when he finally came to Memphis from Kentucky to see me,

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (38:54.915)
He offered me a dollar a week to write for the American Baptist.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (39:06.137)
I could actually get paid doing the work that I love.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (39:14.083)
And as I wrote in my diary, and I will quote, it was the first time anyone had offered to pay me for the work I had enjoyed doing. I had never dreamed of receiving any pay for I had been too happy over the thought that the papers were giving me space.

Adesoji Iginla (39:35.246)
Hmm.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (39:39.533)
I know that there is a young woman, there is a young man listening to me right now.

who is just happy to be in a space having an opportunity to do what they love. But I want you to dream a little bigger than even I did, that you can actually make a living doing what you love.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (40:10.937)
So I became famous, really, amongst black newspaper readers. And T. Thomas Fortune, he said, she has plenty of nerve. She's smart as a steel trap, and she has no sympathy with humbug.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (40:34.649)
but not everybody was a fan. The Cleveland Gazette.

had this to say about me.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (40:46.421)
She's trying to be pretty as well as smart.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (40:53.579)
Now how many young women today are feeling like they cannot be themselves because they can either be one or the other?

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (41:09.559)
My nickname was Princess of the Press.

But there are sacrifices that come with this. And I know we don't have forever, so I will speed this story up. But I wanted to give you an understanding of my beginnings.

Adesoji Iginla (41:25.774)
Context.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (41:30.209)
I launched the three press. And after my friends were lynched, were murdered.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (41:46.881)
I happened to be out of town speaking when again T. Thomas Fortune met me in New York and said, you cannot go back to Memphis. And I said, why ever not? And he said, have you not seen the headlines of the paper today? And it was in the paper that I found out that I was considered such a threat.

that my printing press had been burned down and they had positioned men to spy on my home, to look for me at all the train stations. And my friends warned that should I return, I would be hanged, I would be shot. There were all of these plans that they had for me.

And so I could not return and there was nothing to return to. And so here I was at age 30, single, no job, no printing press. All my money had been sunk into my press and just really the clothes that I had with me. And I had to start again.

Adesoji Iginla (42:48.116)
All for writing.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (43:19.747)
Let's start again, I did. Because...

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (43:32.451)
What option should, what other option should we take in the face of this brutality and this hatred of us? Should we lay down and die?

Adesoji Iginla (43:48.482)
No, no, we can't cover.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (44:04.941)
I pause only because it hurts to think about the way my friends were killed.

Thomas Moss's wife was pregnant. She stayed on until after she had her baby before she moved.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (44:26.735)
Can you believe that they kill us and then they spread word throughout Memphis for more of them?

to come out and their law officers going all through the black part of town, arresting black people, quote unquote, on suspicions of being involved in some shooting.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (45:03.075)
They call it a bloody riot when they go and massacre our people.

Thomas Moss had begged for his life and for the sake of his wife, his daughter and his unborn baby. And when he realized they were gonna kill him anyway, he said, tell my people to go west, for there is no justice for them here.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (45:39.169)
What got them so upset that made them decide to burn down? The free speech, my press, because I wrote an editorial.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (45:52.789)
after the murders. And in that editorial I said this, the city of Memphis has demonstrated that neither character nor standing avails the Negro if he dares to protect himself against the white man or become his rival. There is nothing we can do about the lynching now as we are outnumbered and without arms. The white mob could help itself to ammunition, but the order was rigidly enforced against the selling of guns to Negroes.

There is therefore only one thing left that we can do. Save our money and leave a town which will neither protect our lives and property, nor give us a fair trial in the courts, but takes us out and murders us in cold blood when accused by white persons.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (46:41.537)
and the people fled.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (46:48.633)
Some black.

People from Memphis settled in Arkansas. Others left the South altogether, going to places like California and Kansas.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (47:03.267)
Betty Moss eventually moved to Indiana. People left by train, some people walked or traveled in wagons.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (47:16.409)
Crowds came together to watch 300 plus people leaving all at the same time taking action and many of the black people who remained in Memphis refused to work for the white people there.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (47:35.887)
Like I said, within two months, 6,000 black members of Memphis had moved.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (47:48.909)
Meanwhile, prominent white men in Memphis were still hurling threats.

You got off light. We first intended to kill every one of those 31 niggas in jail, but concluded to let all go but the leaders.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (48:09.697)
That lynching caused me to start investigating other lynchings.

I found out that that word lynching dates back to the 1700s.

Did you know that?

Adesoji Iginla (48:26.668)
No, no.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (48:30.895)
you

There is almost no part of American history that when you go and research it does not come back to racism.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (48:49.623)
lynchings. These were the beatings named after Virginia Charles Lynch who authorized attacks against British sympathizers.

Adesoji Iginla (49:06.286)
you

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (49:13.345)
After independence, the lynchings moved from British sympathizers who could have been black and white, and primarily it was used against black people. It meant the murder of a person by a mob, usually by hanging.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (49:48.911)
1890, 85 of the 96 people lynched were black because they like I said they used to lynch white people.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (50:03.778)
the year 1892 when I really started to delve into my research, 230 people were known to have been lynched that year.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (50:21.293)
The true figure was probably a lot higher. For many people just disappeared or died in suspicious accidents.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (50:36.291)
This is what some of us did not know. And it's still, this kind of disinformation still carries on today. You get a newspaper.

Adesoji Iginla (50:46.99)
Okay.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (50:48.595)
not financed by us, not written by us. And you read a headline and you believe every word in that headline.

Well, here's an example of a headline I came across.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (51:07.779)
The big burly brute was lynched because he had raped the seven-year-old daughter of the sheriff.

But do you know what the truth was about that situation?

that seven-year-old daughter was actually an 18-year-old woman.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (51:28.823)
The burly brute was actually a young black boy man of the same age and the two were lovers. She white, he black.

The sheriff had found the couple together and concocted the rape story inciting a mob to kill his daughter's boyfriend. And then the newspapers took it a step further and made the woman a seven-year-old girl. Now we as black people could read the same headlines and believe it.

This is why we must have our own presses. This is why we must do our own investigations. Because people are actually poisoning you against yourselves. And so you had these elitist black people who wanted nothing to do with the people they considered the riffraffs. The black people who were bringing down the race.

Adesoji Iginla (52:35.766)
as dense.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (52:39.875)
They felt if they conducted themselves and comported themselves in a certain manner, that would free them. And I would not say that I did not at one point in my life believe the same.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (52:56.247)
In South Carolina, the governor, Benjamin R. Tillman, stood under a tree where eight black people had been lynched and boasted. I would lead a mob to lynch a Negro who had raped a white woman. This was the prevailing, black men who were raping white women, but they did not want to hear the truth of maybe their women being interested in black men. Governor John B. Buchanan,

Tennessee said, actually refused to send out a militia to protect a black man who was being dragged through the streets. Today you have ICE. And I understand that there are some of you of what we would consider the Negro race who are applauding the tactics of ICE. Do you not know your history? Do you not know?

Adesoji Iginla (53:39.117)
Hmm.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (53:55.171)
That soon.

Adesoji Iginla (53:56.169)
It will come for you.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (54:00.333)
Well.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (54:04.545)
I knew my articles had put my life in danger and I was not stupid. I bought a pistol and I kept it on me. And later, one of the quotes I'm known for is that I said, believe a Winchester rifle should have prominent place in every black home.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (54:30.659)
The freeze-freeze was burnt, but I did not stop.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (54:40.609)
In New York, 30 years old, hardly a penny to my name, T. Thomas Fortune gave me a job and invited me actually to become a one fourth owner of the newspaper, The New York Age, and to write a weekly column. And I did that work. I met with at the time 75 year old, Frederick Douglass. And he

had asked me to visit him because he too had been reading my articles. And he said that my writings on lynchings was actually a revelation to him. Again, when we don't have information, it is easy to fall for disinformation. At his suggestion, well,

Adesoji Iginla (55:25.048)
Wow.

Adesoji Iginla (55:32.237)
Hmm.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (55:37.751)
Maybe not his suggestion, but certainly his encouragement. I published a manuscript called Southern Horrors, Lynch law in all of its phases.

And to be able to publish it, because of course no publisher was going to touch it, 250 women in New York City decided to hold a fundraising testimonial in my honor. It was October 5th, 1892. And that testimonial was one of the most moving experiences of my life.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (56:18.349)
In the foreword for that book, Frederick Douglass wrote these words, brave woman, you have done your people in mind a service which can neither be weighed nor measured. If American conscience were only half alive, a scream of horror, shame and indignation would rise to heaven wherever your pamphlet shall be read. Well, it appears.

that American conscience is still not yet half alive. Because not only should we be screaming at what is happening.

to black men and women unfairly locked up in jails all across the United States of America. Black women pushed out of jobs under this regime, under a felon. But also, there should be a scream of horror, shame, and indignation at what ICE is doing. And there should definitely be screams of horror, shame, and indignation.

Adesoji Iginla (57:16.11)
You

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (57:30.859)
at what a man called Jeffrey Epstein and all of his co-conspirators were allowed to do.

Adesoji Iginla (57:41.97)
And allow to get away with. you

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (57:45.279)
And though many people, men in particular in high places, knew what was going on, they chose to remain silent and now even continue with the cover up. There's so much more that I can share with you, but let me just give you a few highlights. I did go on to marry. I went to the...

the big music world conference museum they had in exhibition they had in Chicago. My words escaped me at this time. And of course, the only pavilion there that had anything to do with black people was the one from Haiti. And the Haitians had asked Frederick Douglass to hold court as you will in their pavilion.

Adesoji Iginla (58:39.458)
Mm-hmm.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (58:43.149)
And of course there were all of these white people who wanted to come and shake his hand and spend time and so on with him.

I was incensed at the fact that here was an opportunity to showcase what the Negro had done after emancipation in spite of the lack of assistance.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (59:12.929)
And so I did write up a manuscript with the help of some other gentlemen, including Fred Ferdinand Barnett. And we printed 10,000 copies and we passed them out.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (59:32.311)
And in working with Ferdinand Barnett, we began to build a close relationship. He was 10 years older than me. I was 33 at the time. And we eventually made the decision to marry. As my grandson would famously say much later, grandpa had to ask grandma three times for her hand in marriage before.

she finally agreed to do so. There's so much more I can tell you about my time and work with founding the NAACP of which I was then not invited to be on the board.

And it was W.E.B. Du Bois who left my name off of that board. Because as progressive as he was back then, he was not progressive enough to see women as equals. Well, thank God he did evolve eventually, I believe.

Adesoji Iginla (01:00:24.21)
Welcome.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (01:00:37.07)
Huh.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (01:00:41.047)
I did get married. I had four children in quick succession. My husband was so supportive of the work that I did that he actually hired a nurse to travel with me so that even though I was a nursing mother, it did not derail the work that I was doing. And we worked together on a printing press that, a newspaper that he had initially founded.

I was harassed at different times by the United States government. One time after black soldiers in Houston, Texas, who had endured so much indignity had fought back and the government decided to kill some of them in some trial where they did not really give them a fair shake.

Adesoji Iginla (01:01:25.326)
Yeah.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (01:01:41.677)
and I had decided to honor these men, but no church would allow me to hold a memorial in their honor because they were afraid of retribution from white mobs and from the government. I think we're seeing that again in these times, people being too afraid to speak up. But speak up, I would continue to do.

Adesoji Iginla (01:01:52.28)
the state may come down. Yeah.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (01:02:11.351)
Like I said, when the United States and its allies won the war in November of 1918 and we had over 400,000 African Americans who served in that war effort.

Adesoji Iginla (01:02:23.93)
Hmm.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (01:02:27.319)
We attempted.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (01:02:32.345)
some representatives of the Negro race to attend that peace conference scheduled in Paris, in Paris. But of course, we were denied by President Wilson the opportunity to attend. And we can go on with so many ways that every time we try to fight back, they put roadblocks in our way.

I'm gonna tell this last story as I wind up here and take any questions that you have and I realize that I'm keeping your audience, but there's so much, it's so difficult to, I lived a good life. I died fairly young at 68, but it was a life of impact.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (01:03:26.947)
We had black people who were moving from the South to the North to Chicago because I had now got married and settled in Chicago. And my husband was fairly well to do. He was trained as a lawyer. And...

What I noticed was again, the more well-to-do black people doing everything they could to distance themselves from a brethren who didn't have the means. And we had this area on South Street, number of blocks of the street.

Adesoji Iginla (01:03:53.134)
Yeah. Yeah.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (01:04:13.441)
we don't walk down that street, we strutted down that street. It was the street where everybody came in and you had to show yourself off in your best garbs. And there were certain storefronts, but once you got behind that, were salons and gambling institutions and things of that nature. But what I recognized is that for the white people coming into the city,

They had the YMCA and they had other places that would take them in and give them a helping hand to find work and then to be able to provide for themselves. But none of those places would take in Blacks. Every other group, every other ethnic group could come and find shelter and assistance, but not Black people.

And so amongst the many initiatives that I founded, women's clubs and literacy societies and so on, I founded the Negro Fellowship League.

And the purpose of this was to create a place where as our brothers and sisters who were less fortunate migrated to Chicago, we had a place and there were thousands of people that I helped to find jobs. And there were a few donations that would come in to help us cover the rent for the place and to provide resources. But it was.

me also paying out of the work that I was doing and my husband also assisting with keeping this going.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (01:06:01.902)
Well.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (01:06:06.839)
As things got harder and so many of the Black elites who could have helped to keep the place open were still distancing themselves. My husband and I managed to keep the Negro Fellowship League open for 10 years, but we eventually had to shut our doors. And I share that story because I wonder if we have learned yet.

Adesoji Iginla (01:06:38.51)
that's the case.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (01:06:38.999)
And we cannot ask for others to do for us what we are unwilling to do for ourselves. And if you have been so blessed, remember again that most of our Black elites, most of our Black millionaires actually have made their money first from the Black community. First, we accept you, and then maybe you cross over. Aretha Franklin!

Adesoji Iginla (01:07:04.59)
and

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (01:07:08.825)
who came much later than me understood this, which is why she always

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (01:07:18.639)
paid reverence to the black community. She did her best to support what was going on in the black community. It looks like too many of us have forgotten these lessons as we live our well-to-do lives.

Adesoji Iginla (01:07:24.79)
Yeah.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (01:07:39.199)
gosh, I keep remembering more and more stories.

Adesoji Iginla (01:07:44.193)
You

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (01:07:48.131)
Go and research July 2nd, 1917, one of the deadliest race riots in the United States history in East St. Louis. And when people were running away from East St. Louis, I went to East St. Louis to get the stories, to document the stories from our people.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (01:08:16.281)
Do you remember a story that took place in Arkansas? I promise this will probably be the last one I tell you.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (01:08:30.787)
I had not been back to the South in decades because I was concerned for my well-being.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (01:08:45.123)
They were these young men who had been corralled and charged with all manners of crimes that were going to cost them their lives in Arkansas.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (01:09:02.525)
and I was a much older woman at the time.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (01:09:12.375)
And I snuck in well under the guise of being one of the wives and mothers of the boys, the men who were being held there.

And when they recognized me, I put my hand to my lips.

Don't let them know who it is that's visiting you. But I need to hear your stories. And I didn't bring anything to write with because that would give me away.

Adesoji Iginla (01:09:43.31)
Yeah.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (01:09:46.019)
And they told their stories of how it was a matter of self-defense. And then the white mob came in and they just ransacked the town and gathered up these young men and they were going to put these men to death.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (01:10:10.903)
And at the end of it, about two hours they had talked to me. I said, sing me some songs. And they started to sing some spirituals. And they were singing about dying and going to heaven and how God was going to reward them in heaven. And when they were done, I said to them, why are you singing about dying and going to heaven?

Why are you not singing to this same God and telling this God to free you from this? Why are you not singing about fighting back?

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (01:10:55.063)
and I left that jail.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (01:11:00.779)
And I wrote their story. And that went out to across the country. And based on all of the attention that that story gathered.

Those young men were eventually acquitted.

Years later, I saw a young man in Chicago.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (01:11:30.615)
And he said, I've been looking for you since I moved here. And I said, he said, do you remember me? I said, I don't. And he said, I was one of the young men in that jail. And you told us not to pray for death, but to pray for life and to fight. And I just wanted to come and thank you.

So to all of you listening to me today, how are you fighting?

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (01:12:07.097)
till the end of my life.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (01:12:12.025)
Just a year before I died, I ran for political office. I did not make it, but I ran.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (01:12:25.775)
In what way are you going to contribute to the liberation of our people?

Have you not heard from multiple women so far that your silence will not save you?

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (01:12:45.485)
And so I want to thank you for this opportunity. I want to thank those who are still telling my story. I want to thank those who have found ways to get information out about who I am, who I are.

Adesoji Iginla (01:13:03.48)
working.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (01:13:04.321)
now there's a stamp in my name and lo and behold, I died way back in 1931 and in 2020, they give me a Pulitzer Prize. Well, go figure. Go figure. I guess we can still speak from the grave. Of course, my Chicago home is...

Adesoji Iginla (01:13:31.221)
museum.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (01:13:32.559)
A place of honor today, yes. It's been designated a National Historic Landmark. There was once a housing development in Chicago named the I.W. Wells Homes. There numerous schools and streets and scholarships in my name.

And I'm very grateful, not because my name necessarily needs to go up, but the work.

that needs to be done still and how it was done is what needs to go forward. so Paula Giddings has a rather thick book on me, Aida, A Sword Among Lions. And what I love is that there are so many books that have been written that can appeal to even younger people. This one.

Adesoji Iginla (01:14:27.694)
and everyone else.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (01:14:29.441)
Yes, Mother of the Civil Rights Movement. And I like this one. They have all kinds of titles for me. Ida B. the Queen, the Extraordinary Life and Legacy of Ida B. Wells. And then interesting how some of them put B. Wells Barnett and some don't, but I'm very grateful to Ferdinand Barnett for being the kind of husband that he was to me and for the legacy that we have left with our children and our grandchildren.

And I apologize for taking the liberties of an older woman to speak so long.

Adesoji Iginla (01:15:06.03)
No, no, no, no. I think, like you said, the stories need to be told. Parallels can be drawn with what you and True experienced with our current predicament. You mentioned lynching. is, maybe there is still lynching in the South, but now the kind of lynching people are used to is economic lynching.

300,000, over 300,000 women were let go of the federal government and that is a sizable part of the population. So that in itself is neutering the black empowerment that could be built upon.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (01:15:49.899)
Well, yes, and I'm glad you bring that up, that there are different forms of lynching. But I must say...

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (01:16:01.357)
There seems to be an uptick in the appearance of black young men found hanging.

Adesoji Iginla (01:16:10.273)
Yeah, yeah. then. Mm-hmm.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (01:16:15.915)
Now if it's true that they truly took their own lives and chose that means, we must do an investigation into what is happening in our community that would push a young man to take his life in a way so reminiscent of what our oppressors did to us.

Adesoji Iginla (01:16:32.282)
Correct. Hmm

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (01:16:46.861)
And these lynchings are showing up not just in the, well, let me rephrase, but these hangings, these strange fruit on trees, are showing up not just in the south, but also in some of the northern areas as well.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (01:17:13.303)
and we must not just believe the headlines.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (01:17:20.735)
We must do our own research and understand.

Are our young men really harming themselves in this manner? Or is something else underfoot?

Adesoji Iginla (01:17:39.982)
the

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (01:17:40.025)
But no one else should be expected to tell our stories for us.

Adesoji Iginla (01:17:45.23)
Sure. I mean, we also have loads of platforms now that longer the days that you have everything in print. Now you could do video investigation, video journalists are there. So you could write and document the story. And then obviously people...

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (01:18:06.863)
what I could have done if I lived in your times. What I could have done, yes.

Adesoji Iginla (01:18:12.206)
I mean the tools are much more advanced now to the point where you put a story online and it travels far further than even what you did back in the day. I mean we're talking about

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (01:18:27.791)
Is that why we have given up our presses?

Adesoji Iginla (01:18:35.118)
I think we're not giving up our oppressive. It's...

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (01:18:37.711)
How is it possible that we had more newspapers?

in the late 1890s and early 1900s than you have today in 2026.

Adesoji Iginla (01:18:55.15)
Okay, so a host of reasons can be put down to that. One is the fact that the oligarchs have bought up all the presses in order to control the narrative.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (01:19:08.783)
Awwww, I can't let you carry on down that path.

Adesoji Iginla (01:19:14.102)
No, I mean...

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (01:19:15.907)
Did we not have oligarchs back in our time?

Adesoji Iginla (01:19:19.178)
No, you had rubber barons. You had rubber barons back then. here is the fact that you have. Well, I suppose maybe I'm trying to. That would be the case. That would be the case. And. Well, and also the fact that we don't. The way we normally would support.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (01:19:29.495)
Would it not be because we stopped patronizing our own papers?

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (01:19:38.223)
So this is a self-inflicted wound.

Adesoji Iginla (01:19:48.174)
precious now is we just sort of show up instead of paying into it, helping to nurture it, sharing, you know, and basically just constantly subscribing as well would...

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (01:20:04.131)
I hear excuses. I did not suffer excuses.

Adesoji Iginla (01:20:09.312)
No, I'm not saying obviously those kind of things cannot be done now. They can be, but we also need to adapt with the times. There are platforms that can be launched, one of which is what we're doing here, which is storytelling. That is a form of memory keeping, record keeping as well. But it's just that we're not

want a better word, we're not motivated enough. That's that would be the case.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (01:20:46.255)
So here's an easy enough assignment for whoever might be watching or listening. Find...

Adesoji Iginla (01:21:00.494)
Mm.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (01:21:00.559)
Bye.

a journalist or a platform, whatever words you call it now, that you are going to support and do so on a consistent basis so that they can do the work of

Adesoji Iginla (01:21:15.47)
Hmm. True.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (01:21:25.209)
getting the stories and putting out the stories. Someone has to go to where things are happening. Someone has to speak to the people. Someone has to make the sacrifices. And all of these things take resources. So if each person decided, I'm going to identify one news outlet that serves my community or one reporter.

who serves my community. And if you want to send them a specific note and say, I am giving you my $5.

Adesoji Iginla (01:22:05.562)
Hmm.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (01:22:06.915)
Because this is what I expect so that they understand. We could put ourselves back in a position where it doesn't matter what their papers say.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (01:22:24.523)
We.

telling our own stories and informing our people so that they can make informed decisions, whether it's even on voting. If our people are dependent on this media that has been bought to find out about what candidates they should support, you can understand how we might keep losing out on people who could actually serve us.

Adesoji Iginla (01:22:36.366)
Mm.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (01:23:12.825)
the utmost confidence in us. I know where we've come from. We must remember and understand also the progress, but also understand what it took to make that progress.

and to be very clear.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (01:23:39.437)
that no manner of decorum

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (01:23:44.971)
is going to grant you white citizenship in America.

Adesoji Iginla (01:23:46.222)
You

Certainly not.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (01:23:53.923)
Therefore, we must fight for our own rights.

And just like I said over a century ago that too many of us were not fighting hard enough. The same is true today.

Adesoji Iginla (01:24:17.662)
Yes, fortunately that's the case and we have the red tyrant at the moment so that's it. We've come to the end of this week's episode of Women in Resistance. Next week it will be the turn of Ndati Yala Mbodj, who she is, what she was about. You will hear in the course

of next week's episode. But before then, on Saturday, myself, Iafobere and Elyesquire, Marlon, Sandra, and Dr. Travis would be

Talking about Kataji Woodson's book, The Miseducation of the Negro, that is part of the Grill and Book podcast. So Saturday, 3 p.m. Eastern Standard Time, it will be the turn of Kataji Woodson, the father of Black history. I mean, let's save it till Saturday. Until then.

Ms. Wells, thank you for coming.

Adesoji Iginla (01:25:45.863)
And from me, until next week, it's good night and God bless.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (01:25:51.833)
Thank you for having me.

Adesoji Iginla (01:25:53.484)
You're welcome.