As a small group gathered to meditate outside a national monument honoring Ida B. Wells-Barnett, the four or five attendees were instructed in the art of focus and relaxation while being offered a subtle reminder about the famed civil rights activist and her legacy.
“As Black people in America, we’ve come this far by faith,” said Sylvia Ewing, as she co-led the meditation. “And imagine that strength and that light as you look here. And imagine you take your gaze up to the sky. And if you look gently, you’ll see clouds slowly move. Let your breath slow down.”
It was the first of several events taking place Saturday in Chicago’s Bronzeville community honoring Wells-Barnett for the 5th annual Ida B. Wells Festival. Other events included walking and bus tours throughout the neighborhood, where the noted journalist, women’s suffragist and co-founder of the NAACP once resided.
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The festival also offered a Zumba class later in the day outside the 35-foot-tall “Light of Truth” monument — created by the late Chicago sculptor Richard Hunt and dedicated in the neighborhood in 2021 — and on the site of a former public housing project that bore Wells-Barnett’s name.
The festival also featured various children and family activities, and a screening of a film by a community organizer in high school about how Black people have resisted oppression across time throughout Illinois.
Lt. Gov. Juliana Stratton relaxed in a lawn chair, sporting sunglasses, inconspicuously blending in as part of that small meditation group in front of the monument. The Democratic nominee for U.S. Senate said afterwards she stays focused by meditating regularly, but acknowledged how practicing it on Saturday had a special significance for her, considering it’s in her home community where so many other Black Americans called home after the Great Migration in the 1900s, and was home to Wells-Barnett, a woman “of such courage and bravery.”
“I mean, look at when I think about where we are right now, this is a place of real grounding to come back to be reminded of our ancestors, to be reminded of people who still are part of this community or moved out of this community, but whose roots are still here, and they ground me every day,” Stratton said.
Wells-Barnett was born into slavery in 1862 in Holly Springs, Mississippi, before documenting the lynching of Black Americans in the late 1800s, subjecting her to threats.
She spoke about lynching in her travels around the country and to Europe, and moved from the American South to Chicago, where she founded a Black women’s club and a Black suffrage organization. That group helped elect Oscar De Priest, Chicago’s first Black alderman, after women in Illinois gained voting rights in the early 1900s.
With voting rights being a central theme for Saturday’s festival, Stratton decried a decision earlier this year by the 6-3 conservative-majority U.S. Supreme Court that some legal experts have said would weaken federal law by drastically limiting the presence of congressional districts whose voters are predominantly people of color.
Michelle Duster, a co-producer of Saturday’s festival and a great-granddaughter of Wells-Barnett, also raised concerns about how another policy proposal being pushed by President Donald Trump and other Washington Republicans could create barriers for married women to vote if they need to show more proof of U.S. citizenship on documentation.
“She spent most of her life without having the ability to vote and she was involved in the suffrage movement,” Duster said of Wells-Barnett. “And obviously, all the rollback when it comes to access to the ballot is very connected to her legacy because that’s what she fought for was to have a voice in our democracy.”
The festival is also meant to educate young people about Wells-Barnett’s legacy at a time when many elected officials have launched efforts to engage youth more in the democratic process. Devorah Crable, who was part of the meditation group and has pushed for voter education through civic engagement, was part of an afternoon panel discussion on voting rights at the festival, which included Democratic U.S. Rep. Robin Kelly of Lynwood.
“Now, if ever in the history of this country, is the time to stand up and let your voice be heard,” Crable said right after the meditation session Saturday morning. “Let’s, again, revisit, re-educate about what it means to have the democracy that we have and value in terms of having self-governance…If you believe in that, get in the game. Register to vote. That gets you in the game. Now what you do afterwards, if you actually go to the polls, that’s up to you, your conscience and your creator.”
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Bernard Turner, executive director of the Bronzeville Black Metropolis National Heritage Area, who also helped organize the festival, said the festival is meant to help attendees, especially young people, “learn about Ida B. Wells, what kind of work she did and to think about becoming an activist like she was.”
“We want to pass along this heritage, culture and aggressive fight against injustice to the next generation,” he said. “It’s especially important in this climate that we’re in because we need to have our voices heard.”