Portrait of Ida B. Wells Barnett, c.1893 (sepia photo) by American School, (19th century); (Ida Bell Wells-Barnett (1862 1931) was an African-American journalist, newspaper editor, suffragist, sociologist, and an early leader in the civil rights movement. She documented lynching in the United States, showing that it was often used as a way to control or punish blacks who competed with whites, rather than being based in criminal acts by blacks, as was usually claimed by white mob)