Ida B. the Queen by Michelle Duster

Author:Michelle Duster
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Atria/One Signal Publishers
Published: 2021-01-26T00:00:00+00:00

Ida was aware of the difference in protection she could expect compared to white women, and she did everything possible to avoid dangerous situations or others that could tarnish her reputation. She was so vigilant about it that she demanded that a pastor write a letter to speak to her character in 1891 after hearing that he had been disparaging her name in his community. Ida had stayed over as a guest of the minister and his wife while in Vicksburg, Mississippi, on a sales trip for the Free Speech. Both Ida and the sister-in-law of the minister stayed at the house. The two women happened to converse with some men who visited the house during their stay.

Later, Ida learned that the pastor had spoken to people about how virtuous northern women were in comparison to southern women, implying that the southern-born Ida was herself not virtuous. The minister’s wife had fished Ida’s torn-up mail out of the trash and read a letter in which Ida referenced losing her teaching position in Memphis. After his wife relayed the contents of Ida’s private correspondence, the minister twisted whatever Ida had said in her letter to imply that her lack of virtue, versus her outspokenness, explained why the Memphis school system had not renewed Ida’s contract to teach. Not only did he and his wife sully Ida’s name, they also completely erased the fact that she’d taken the school system to task by exposing the vast inequality between Black and white schools. This assumption—and his willingness to share it with others—was insulting on multiple levels.

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