Ida B. Wells

Who is Ida B. Wells?

Ida B. Wells is a real-life journalist and anti-lynching crusader who appears in Suffs as a forceful advocate demanding that the suffrage movement include and represent Black women rather than sideline them to appease Southern white supporters. She pushes back directly against Alice Paul and the movement's leadership, refusing to be relegated to the back of marches or written out of the fight.

Her presence in the show grounds its broader themes of coalition and exclusion, making clear that the campaign for women's suffrage was not a unified, uncomplicated effort. Wells's insistence on being seen and heard gives the musical some of its sharpest moments of conflict.

Ida B. Wells's role in Suffs

Ida B. Wells is a supporting role in Suffs, and though she appears less frequently than the show's central suffragists, her scenes carry significant dramatic weight. The role calls for a commanding vocal and dramatic presence capable of holding her own against the show's leads in moments of direct confrontation.

Audiences remember Wells for voicing the movement's unresolved racial contradictions plainly, giving Suffs a more honest reckoning with its history than a simpler telling might have allowed.

Ida B. Wells on stage vs screen

Broadway compared with Iron Jawed Angels, HBO's 2004 film of the same history

Adilah Barnes played Ida B. Wells, credited as Ida B. Wells-Barnett, in HBO's Iron Jawed Angels (2004), a separate film about the same campaign. In Suffs, Nikki M. James originated the role Off-Broadway in 2022 and on Broadway in 2024.

The musical builds Wells's part around the movement's racism. When she is told Black suffragists will march separately in the 1913 parade, she insists on marching with her state delegation and sings Wait My Turn, attacking the compromise. She later reprises it with Mary Church Terrell, voicing the exhaustion of fighting for Black women's rights inside a movement that sidelined them.

Ida B. Wells: frequently asked questions