Ida B. Wells (full name: Ida Bell Wells-Barnett) (July 16, 1862 – March 25, 1931) was an American investigative journalist, educator n the 1890s, Wells documented lynching in the United States in articles and through her pamphlets called Southern Horrors: Lynch Law in all its Phases, and The Red Record, investigating frequent claims of whites that lynchings were reserved for Black criminals only. Wells exposed lynching as a barbaric practice of whites in the South used to intimidate and oppress African Americans who created economic and political competition—and a subsequent threat of loss of power—for whites. A white mob destroyed her newspaper office and presses as her investigative reporting was carried nationally in Black-owned newspapers.
In 1847 Frederick Douglass moved to Rochester, New York to publish his own newspaper The North Star. Through a merger in 1851, Douglass created a new newspaper entitled Frederick Douglass' Paper. In 1859, he began publishing a monthly paper entitled Douglass's Monthly.