New Ida B. Wells Barbie Doll
Mattel honors a heroine who changed the course of history and ultimately made the world a better place.
The newest release in Barbie’s Inspiring Women series honors trailblazing journalist Ida B. Wells.
The doll was created in partnership with Ida B. Wells’s family, including her great-granddaughter, Michelle Duster. She, too, has carved her own path as a public historian and author of the newly released illustrated biography, Ida B. Wells, Voice of Truth.
“My great-grandmother was known to be opinionated, uncompromising, difficult, unreasonable, and many other things that strong women can sometimes be labeled,” Duster shared with Yahoo Life. “I admire how she ignored the negativity and stayed focused on her goal, even when she had to sometimes go it alone.”
“She showed by example how important it is to believe in yourself even when others don’t see the vision or believe that something is possible,” she adds. “Your own belief is enough.”
Launched in 2018, the Barbie Inspiring Women series is a doll line paying tribute to historical and present-day role models. Each woman honored in the series has made history by paving the way for generations of girls to reach their full potential, dream bigger and make their voices heard. The line has previously paid tribute to greats like Maya Angelou, Rosa Parks, Helen Keller, Billie Jean King, and Eleanor Roosevelt.
Barbie will now honor a heroine who changed the course of history and ultimately made the world a better place: Ida B. Wells. An early leader in the civil rights movement and co-founder of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), not only did Wells fight for Black equality, but for that of women.
Born into slavery, Ida grew up to become a journalist, activist, and suffragist—bringing light to the stories of injustice that Black people faced in her lifetime, and co-founding several organizations including the NAACP.
Wells’s work for the newspaper she owned, The Memphis Free Speech, is highlighted by the doll, which holds a miniature replica of the newspaper. As an investigative journalist in Memphis, Tennessee, Wells wrote about the lynching of three store owners, and exposed the economics that motivated the lynchings. Wells later won a Pulitzer Prize for her reporting.
When children learn about heroes like Ida B. Wells, they don’t just imagine a better future—they know they have the power to make it come true.
