Talk:Ida B. Wells

Editing is needed

The lengthy disorganized presentation of this page does little to honor Ms. Wells and needs editing. 174.64.79.41 (talk) 22:37, 31 May 2025 (UTC)

The article has been much modified since this comment was made, but I find I agree with the organization feeling lacking. The Bibliography feels scattershot and it's unclear what sources are actually being cited or why (I'm not sure why a full detailing of Allen is given including exhibitions, especially when it's missing in-place identifiers and is only cited once), the biography zig-zags back and forth from different topics rather than giving an overview of her life before diving into areas that make sense to discuss further in depth, and it relies way more heavily on primary news reporting/sources from decades ago than it should in spots, especially when trying to determine due weight. There's a number of good biographies written in the last 20 years that this article either doesn't use or uses far more sparingly and probably preferring older, less quality sources. The legacy and honors section is a proseline list of random awards, portraits, and random media mentions. I'm thinking a top-down rethink/rewrite would be a good idea. Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs ^talk 16:13, 14 January 2026 (UTC)

Education secretary used fake photo

Extensive coverage of education secretary Linda McMahon posting a message celebrating Wells, using an AI-generated image (and without mentioning her anti-lynching activism). For example:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/education/2026/04/11/linda-mcmahon-fake-ida-b-wells-photo/
Education secretary used fake photo in post about Black history icon; Linda McMahon’s Truth Social post about journalist Ida B. Wells is the latest problematic use of AI and other digitally created images by the Trump administration.
By Todd Wallack
Washington Post
11 April 2026

I thought this might be an example of the Trump Administration applying his Executive Order, "Restoring Truth and Sanity to American History," which deleted black history and lynching from many government agencies, but I couldn't find a WP:RS saying so.Nbauman (talk) 16:58, 11 April 2026 (UTC)

That might be relevant to McMahon's article or if there's an article that covers hoax images by the government, but I don't see any relevance to the biography of Wells. She's not significant to the kerfuffle, she was just the latest example of an issue. Schazjmd (talk) 18:02, 11 April 2026 (UTC)

'Slave' or 'enslaved'?

The use of "enslaved" and "enslaver" wasn't in my old style book, so I looked it up. The following story shows how NPR and AP treat it. It was popularized by the New York Times in "The 1619 Project", and should reflect the preference of the person being discussed:

https://www.npr.org/sections/publiceditor/2023/12/14/1219329636/
slave-or-enslaved 'Slave' or 'enslaved'? And why it matters
NPR Public Editor
DECEMBER 14, 2023

"... Because language use in journalism tends to be a window into other values that guide the work, we asked NPR how its journalists use these terms. Read on to see what we learned." Nbauman (talk) 16:56, 11 April 2026 (UTC)