Ida B. Wells: Our Fearless American Foremother (1862-1931)
This first-person Chautauqua-style program enacts the words of Ida B. Wells-Barnett. Her effective writing in pamphlets and articles—work that helped to end the practice of lynching—will be demonstrated, and a brief, diary-based reflection on youth and old age will be offered. Audience members may choose to read aloud from Ida B. Wells’ work or to create a short readers’ theater by choosing excerpts from a handout. A discussion of Wells as an American foremother will link the present with Wells’ work and with ideas central to our history as Americans, such as freedom of speech and freedom of the press.
Nancy Huse holds a PhD in English from the University of Chicago. She has published numerous articles and delivered many presentations on American and children’s literature. She was the Children’s Literature Association President, as well as a member of the Illinois Council of Teachers of English. Her interests include children and young adult’s literature, English and American language literature, African American literature, and women and gender studies.
