Ida B Wells in Birmingham: Further Connections

Description:These tours came about because of the work and commitment of two woman in particular, Catherine Impey and Isabella Mayo. Catherine Impey was a wealthy Quaker from Street, Somerset. Like many Quakers she was passionate about reform and was particularly concerned about racial justice. She published a journal called Anti-Caste [4] which was devoted to “the interests of the coloured races” and anti-imperialism. She visited America in 1890 and 1892 when she heard Wells lecture in Philadelphia. She was later introduced to Wells by the well-known former Underground Railroad ‘conductor’ William Still. Impey invited Wells to come to Britain to raise awareness of the horrors of lynching. One of the readers of Anti-Caste was the Scottish reformer Isabella Fyvie Mayo, who contacted Impey with a view to raising public awareness about lynching. Impey suggested inviting Wells to Britain and Mayo agreed to finance her visit.

The journal Anti-Caste was part of a general concern at the time for the rights of black and aboriginal peoples, along with pressure groups like The Anti-slavery Society, the Aborigines Protection Society and the National Indian Association. It had a small but significant readership and which included people overseas. By the end of 1889 3500 copies were printed each month. In 1890 100 copies were being sent to South Carolina alone, and there were readers in Africa, Bermuda, Bahamas, Canada and many other places in USA. Frederick Douglass, by then the US minister to Haiti, was a life subscriber and supporter. Wells’ first British lecture tour was used by Mayo and Impey to launch a new organisation, the Society for the Recognition of the Brotherhood of Man (SRBM).

Wells’ time in Britain and Birmingham were a great success. She attracted large audiences and her lectures were well reported in the Birmingham newspapers. On the morning of May 17th 1893, Wells gave speeches in the Young Men's Christian Assembly Rooms in Needless Alley (just off New Street). In the evening, she went on to give a talk in the Central Hall, Corporation Street.

The image above features an Ida B Wells speech described in the Birmingham Weekly Post, May 20th 1893.