Constant Star – The Story of Ida B. Wells

reviewed by Pat Pending

Actors Theater of Louisville recently has been performing the story of Ida B. Wells, a black woman who was part of the movement for black rights and women’s rights in the United States.  Wells was a very strong woman, who worked hard to advance the principle of equal justice under the law.  She had been a school teacher but began publishing a newspaper speaking out against the atrocities that were occurring against blacks, especially the illegal taking of life and property, while the authorities who were charged with defending life and property did nothing. 

In one incident, Wells purchased a first class ticket from the railroad but was thrown off the train when she refused to move out of the first class area.  She sued the railroad and won, but the case was overturned on appeal.  She was very disappointed that the law, which was supposed to be color blind, had let her down.  In another incident, Wells’ friends were preparing to open up a store in a black neighborhood.  The store would be in competition with a store that was owned by whites.  Shortly before the store was to open, a white mob dragged the owners off to the woods, killed them, and looted the store.  At that point, Wells despaired of there ever being justice in the south and advised blacks to go west, where they might receive equal justice under the law.

Wells spoke very unfavorably of Booker T. Washington, who she thought was too quick to compromise on principle.  She supported the basic concepts on which the country was founded – equal justice under the law and a government that defends life and property.  She was confident that blacks would do fine if they just received the basic protections under the law, because they had plenty of job skills and knew how to earn a living and take care of themselves as well as others.  Unfortunately, the government regularly disappointed her, with those officials who had pledged to uphold the law winking or looking the other way as blacks were lynched and their property was stolen or destroyed.

At one point in the play, she shoots off a pistol, saying she thinks it is important for blacks to have guns for self-defense, and saying that, if any white mob came to lynch her, they might succeed in killing her, but she would also take a few of them along with her!  She suggested that lynchings might not be so prevalent if whites found that blacks would shoot back.  In another scene of the play, Wells’ mother stressed the importance of education, reminding her children that they would have been severely punished when they were slaves if their master had learned that they were obtaining an education.

It was somewhat confusing to have five women on stage at once playing the role of Ida B. Wells, but the play served to tell the story of a strong, courageous woman who was a part of our country’s history and about whom I had never heard before.  Wells’ views would be very familiar to libertarians – that the role of government is to defend life and property and to enforce contracts – to provide a rule of law, not of men.  No doubt she would be a shock to today’s liberals, who think it is evil to own a gun, who do not believe that blacks or other groups are capable of succeeding in a free market, and who do not support equal rights but rather demand that the law treat people differently depending upon their ethnic origin, sexual orientation, or other traits.