EXPERT BIO
PROFESSOR PATRICIA A SCHECHTER
Professor Schechter works at Portland State University and is an expert in women’s, public and transnational history. She is also the author of Ida B Wells-Barnett & American Reform, 1880-1930 (University of North Carolina Press, 2001).
In 2022, Ida B Wells is becoming visible in the United States. She was posthumously awarded the Pulitzer Prize for journalism in 2020, and a major boulevard now carries her name in Chicago, her long-time home. The family residence is a landmark there and The Light of Truth monument has been installed in her honour. Academic studies have spawned a growing shelf of children’s and young adult books about her, and an Ida B Wells doll just dropped as part of Mattel’s Inspiring Women series. Many of these recognitions are the result of the advocacy of Wells’ great-granddaughter, Michelle Duster. The Black Lives Matter movement provides context for the recovery of lost voices for racial justice in the United States - but why so late? And what is the fuller story of this previously neglected and now celebrated figure?
After the Plessy v Ferguson Supreme Court decision of 1896, ‘separate but equal’ became law in the United States. African Americans who faced segregation in employment, education, housing and public accommodations now lacked recourse, yet white people
