The Overlooked

The New York Times is publishing the obituaries of people who were overlooked, since most obits published are about while men.

First up: Ida B. Wells

If you've not read her book on the horrors of lynching, which was first published in 1892, you should.

For one thing, she believed that "a Winchester rifle should have a place of honor in every black home, and it should be used for that protection which the law refuses to give." Another things is that nearly a century before it entered common use among the majority population, she used the term "Afro-American". She tried to organize boycotts of businesses that practiced segregation: "The appeal to the white man's pocket has ever been more effectual than all the appeals ever made to his conscience."

It took a couple more generations before activists took her advice and began applying the power of the purse.