“CRUSADE FOR JUSTICE”:

Abstract

IJda В. Wells was the leading African American woman journalist, lecturer, and club activist in the anti-lynching movement of the turn of the century. Crusade for Justice: The Autobiography of Ida B. Wells has held a special position in African American culture as a protest against oppression, as an historical record from an African American point of view, and as a contribution to the African American literary tradition. The "self that shapes and determines African American autobiography, says Stephen Butterfield, is "not an individual with a private career, but a soldier in a long, historic march toward Canaan."1 There is, according to Elizabeth Shultz, a double tradition within African American autobiography: testimonial autobiography, developed from written narrative (e.g. traditional church testimony), and blues autobiography, from oral narrative (e.g. traditional blues). In the former, the autobiographer focuses on the community and the "self as a member of the community. In the latter, the autobiographer focuses on the "self and the creation of the community through sharing experiences of the "self."2 If we follow this distinction, Crusade for Justice falls into the first category. In this work Wells tries to document her lifelong