Unless you are a coin geek like me, you may not have noticed different quarters appearing in your pocket change in recent years. The American Women Quarters program honors the historic contributions of 20 trailblazing American women. It started in 2022 and ends next year. I want to highlight a coin that was released this year as part of the program.

The next time you are in Chicago, you might find yourself on Ida B. Wells Drive. Formerly called Congress Parkway, Ida B. Wells Drive is a major east–west street in downtown Chicago. It runs east from the Jane Byrne Interchange, where it meets Int. 90, Int. 94 and Int. 290. It is not to be confused with Wells Street, which runs along the east side of THE MART. Wells Street is named after William Wells, a United States Army captain who died in the Battle of Fort Dearborn. At Wells Street, Ida B. Wells Drive continues as a surface street past State Street and Michigan Avenue, until ending at Columbus Drive in Grant Park in front of the Buckingham Fountain.

Chances are you’ve been on Ida B. Wells Drive countless times without thinking twice about who the street is named after. But next time you are in Chicago for NeoCon, Design Days or the upcoming INDEAL Champion Conference, take a moment to consider the street’s namesake.

Ida B. Wells was a prolific educator, investigative journalist, suffragist and civil rights activist. She fought for justice and equality throughout her life and used her powerful voice to expose violence against Black people in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

According to a story on the U.S. Mint website, despite facing serious obstacles of poverty, slavery and prejudice, Wells never tired in the pursuit of justice. She dedicated her life to fighting for equal rights. Her weapons were words, as she waged a fierce battle for the hearts and minds of a country that had been torn apart and delicately stitched back together after a bloody Civil War.

Wells was born on July 16, 1862, the first of eight children. Like all Black Americans in Mississippi at that time, however, she was not born free. Dreaming of a better life and a better future, Wells’s parents taught her the importance of education, a lesson she would carry with her throughout her life. Once the Civil War ended, Wells’s father became politically active in Reconstruction Era politics while Ida went off to school. In 1878, both her parents and her younger brother died of Yellow Fever. In an effort to support her family, Wells taught school in rural Mississippi and eventually moved with her siblings to find work in Memphis, Tenn.

At 22, her activism began to take shape. She sued a railway company after being forcibly removed from a train when she refused to move to the “colored car” from the first-class train, for which she had a ticket. Wells won the suit initially, but the decision was later reversed by the Tennessee Supreme Court. “The way to right wrongs is to turn the light of truth upon them,” Wells once said.

While still in her twenties, Wells became part-owner of the newspaper Memphis Free Speech and Headlight and became a prolific writer. In May 1892, in response to Wells’s article about lynching, a mob destroyed her printing press and drove her from the city. After a few months, she relocated to Chicago. She married lawyer Ferdinand Barnett in 1895, and the couple would go on to have four children. Despite the challenges of raising young children, though, Wells did not leave her work behind and continued to report on Southern lynchings.

While investigating, she occasionally went to the site of a killing, despite extreme danger. In 1895, she published the groundbreaking A Red Record, the first documented statistical report on lynching. In 1896, Wells co-founded the National Association of Colored Women’s Club (NACWC) to address issues affecting Black women.

After a race riot broke out in Springfield, Illinois, she joined other civil rights leaders in 1909 to form the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP). Although her name was not initially included on the list of founders, the NAACP today recognizes her as a founding member.

Wells worked tirelessly throughout her life to raise money for the causes she believed in and encourage political participation. She met two presidents, made friends with many famous writers and activists, and even ran for a seat in the Illinois state senate. She also traveled in Europe, shedding light on lynching to an international audience. While there, she openly confronted white women suffrage leaders who refused to use their large platforms to denounce the difficult realities that Black people faced. After a long and active life, Wells died of kidney disease on March 25, 1931 in Chicago.

So when you feel a jingle in your pocket and pull out an Ida B. Wells commemorative quarter or if you are walking in Chicago and find yourself on the street named after her, take a moment to consider this remarkable woman.