If you have been to Google today, you might have noticed that today's doodle honors journalist and civil rights activist Ida B. Wells on what would be her 153rd birthday. Wells was born into slavery in Holly Spring, Mississippi in 1862. She dedicated her life towards first teaching, then journalism, and all the while advocating for the rights of African-Americans.

In 1931, Ida B. Wells died of kidney failure at the age of 68. However, her memory is honored annually in her hometown of Holly Springs with a weekend festival. From educator, writer, to one of the founder members of the NAACP, Wells' achievements don't go unnoticed. Just check out these major accomplishments and see for yourself who Wells is, and why you should care.

She Was The Original Rosa Parks
 

In 1884, 22-year old Wells refused to give up her seat on the train to a white man when asked by a conductor of the Chesapeake & Ohio Railroad Company. "The moment he caught hold of my arm I fastened my teeth in the back of his hand," Wells wrote in her autobiography, describing the physical encounter with the conductor. This event was 70 years before Rosa Parks refused to move to the back of the bus.

She Led An Anti-Lynching Crusade
 

Wells wrote and publicized some of the earliest record of lynching in the South. Her publications Southern Horrors and Other Writings and The Red Record helped her campaign to shed light upon the realities of such practices after the murder of her friend Thomas Moss in 1889 in Memphis by an aggressive white mob. She investigated lynching in the South and spread the word that such instances were oftentimes occurring with no real cause. Despite the potential danger, Wells became a spokesperson and traveled across the US and the UK, giving a voice to the victims of lynching in the South.

She Was One Of The First Investigative Female Journalists
 

Wells' Rosa Parks moment did not go unnoticed, and in fact inspired her to take legal action against such prejudice. She was eventually offered a contract at Washington DC's Evening Star newspaper, and wrote for The Living Way. In 1889, Wells founded an anti-segregation newspaper called Free Speech and Headlight. All of this was accomplished by age 25.

Tags: Ida B. Wells civil rights journalism african american