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After a distinguished and peripatetic career as a journalist, activist, and lecturer, Ida B. Wells--who had urged black families to keep a Winchester rifle by the front door--put down roots in Chicago and became a Presbyterian.

Wells was born into slavery in Holly Springs, Mississippi, July 16, 1862; her family fled for Memphis following an outbreak of yellow fever. Her career as a champion of civil rights began in 1884 when she sued the Memphis and Charleston Railroad, which had forced her to leave her seat in first class, winning in the lower courts and losing on appeal. She taught...