Ida B. Wells-Barnett had to flee Memphis. Now she has a street named after her

White mobs once sacked Ida B. Wells-Barnett's newspaper after she dared to print the truth about lynchings, forcing her out of Memphis. Now, she has a Memphis street named after her.

The Memphis City Council voted Tuesday to rename Fourth Street between E.H. Crump Boulevard and Union Avenue as Ida B. Wells-Barnett Street. The stretch of road goes past her newly erected bronze statue and First Baptist Church, which was the site of the Memphis Free Speech and Headlight, Wells' newspaper. That statue stands at the edge of Robert R. Church Park, a park named for The South's first Black millionaire.

The renaming is the first of what could become a slew of renamed Memphis landmarks. In 2020, amid a nationwide discussion of systemic racism, the city council created a renaming commission to study Memphis landmarks. That committee completed its work late last year.

'Be inspired to do what she did': Ida B. Wells statue unveiled in Downtown Memphis

This article originally appeared on Memphis Commercial Appeal: Memphis, Tennessee, to rename street in Ida B. Wells-Barnett's honor