"Tout pour l'humanite! tout pour Dieu! rien pour soi!"
("All for humanity! all for God! nothing for herself!")

-A friend of Ida commenting on her life.
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_If a person were alive during Ida B. Wells' time, he would no doubt have heard of her: how, known as the "Princess of the Press", she could cause uproar with the stroke of her pen, how she was fearless in denouncing the evils she saw in her society. Indeed, Ida was one of the most influential people of her day--from the moment she first made headlines as the "Dark Damsel" who had challenged the authority of the Jim Crow Law, she was thrust into the public eye, to be both praised and criticized.

_The path Ida chose to follow--battling the lynch law of the South, segregation, race and gender discrimination-- rarely was taken up so fully and passionately: her dogged devotion resulted in her neither compromising her principles or backing down in face of opposition. The
extent of her struggle cannot be properly appreciated today, for it is hard to imagine a time in which so many were debased and justice for the marginalized was so consciously disregarded. However, it is because of efforts made by fighters like Ida tha t one can find oneself so far removed from such an environment of chaos and disorder. There is so much that can be derived from one who has lived such a life.

_When Ida took up her lynching crusade, she pursued it with relentless perseverance and succeeded in raising awareness both nationally and internationally. Her courage, willpower, spunk, and enthusiasm throughout the years--in the midst of conflict and even when threatened with her life--serves as a source of inspiration for one and all. Perhaps the impact she had can only best be summed up in the beholden words of a sharecropper in the South:

_"The only thing to offer you is prayer...and this goes up from every lip. The words GOD BLESS HER is written here on every acre of ground, and on every doorstep, and inside every home."

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