HISTORY
The Important Reason Ida B. Wells Printed "Free Speech" on Pink Paper
Her goal was to make her paper widely accessible. Here's why that matters
Why did Ida B. Wells, a Black journalist born in 1862 in Holly Springs, Mississippi, publish the "Free Speech" on pink paper? While some would assume she published on pink paper because she's a woman, this paper began before companies started conditioning Americans in 1930s and 40s advertisements to see pink as a "girly" color. To understand her editorial decision, we must first consider the social conditions of Black Americans, her core audience. Throughout her life, Wells witnessed Black people pleading for equal treatment and civility, often met with cruelty. As her writing would reveal, racial terror lynchings were pervasive, and so were the lies promoted to justify the practice.
In her 1892 pamphlet, Southern Horrors, Wells wrote, "Somebody must show that the Afro-American race is more sinned against than sinning, and it seems to have fallen upon me to do so." Of course, the fact that a Black woman could read or write at all was a sign of radical social change. Throughout the chattel slavery era, anti-literacy laws prohibited Black people from reading, writing, or teaching others. Those who dared to pick up a book and decipher its meaning…
