Then, nearly a decade ago, the city tore the Wells housing project down, leaving the activist’s great-granddaughter Michelle Duster and her family worried Wells wouldn’t be remembered at all.

Now, to mark the 150th anniversary of Wells’ birth in 2012, an effort is under way to build a sculpture to honor her legacy at the site of the housing development and renew her relevance for future generations.

“When the housing project was coming down we were like ‘Her name is going to be gone,’” Duster said, sitting in her South Side home, a portrait of her great-grandmother hanging on the wall. “Her name and what she did can’t be lost with the housing project.”

The Ida B. Wells Commemorative Art Committee is seeking $300,000 in donations after commissioning noted Chicago artist Richard Hunt to create the sculpture, which is expected to combine images of Wells with inscriptions of her writings.

While Wells’ name endures on a grade school and a professorship in the city, the monument will aim to reflect the full legacy of a woman who was born into slavery in Mississippi and went on to become a well-respected crusader against injustice and outspoken anti-lynching activist.

Orphaned at age 16, Wells was left to support her five siblings. She became a teacher and moved to Memphis, where she sued a railroad because she wasn’t allowed to sit in the ladies coach. When she later became a journalist, Wells wrote about that incident and the lynchings of three of her male friends.

Her writings enraged others and led to Wells being forced to leave the South. She kept writing and speaking about lynching across the U.S. and England. She died in 1931 and is buried in Chicago.

Planning for the Ida B. Wells Homes started three years after her death, as a project of the Public Works Administration. The homes opened in 1941 and first lady Eleanor Roosevelt visited the complex, with its 1,662 units — more than 860 apartments and nearly 800 row houses and garden apartments.

By the 1990s, the housing complex had fallen to drugs and violence. In an infamous 1994 case, two boys, ages 10 and 11, dropped a 5-year-old boy to his death from a vacant 14-floor apartment. The boys were convicted on juvenile murder charges. The same year two neighborhood teenagers produced an award-winning radio documentary “Ghetto Life 101,” which aired on National Public Radio.

A year later, prosecutors charged seven people with running a cocaine ring out of the Ida B. Wells Homes that authorities say did such booming business drug buyers lined up 50 at a time.

By 2002, the last buildings were torn down in a nationally watched urban renewal plan initiated by then-Mayor Richard Daley that also targeted other housing projects — including Cabrini-Green, which saw the last of its high-rises crumble under wrecking balls earlier this year.

As Wells Homes residents focused on finding new places to live, some also requested something be done in tribute to the activist.

“I want people to remember Ida B. Wells the woman, not Ida B. Wells the housing community,” her great-granddaughter, Duster, said. “Something should be done to remember who she was. I think who she was as a woman got lost when it was attached to the housing projects.”

When the money is raised, that something will be a sculpture in the middle of a large grassy median on 37th Street and Langley Avenue in the historically African-American neighborhood of Bronzeville on the city’s South Side.

The site, across the street from a large park, isn’t far from the 19th-century stone house where Wells lived from 1919 to 1929. The Ida B. Wells-Barnett House is now a National Historic Landmark.

Hunt envisions a sculpture in his metallic, free-form style that will incorporate images and writings of Wells. He said he hopes to convey “what a courageous and intelligent and committed person that she was.”

Carol Adams, president of Chicago’s DuSable Museum of African-American History, said the sculpture will be a lasting monument to Wells and a place where people can learn about her influence. The neighborhood is already home to the Ida B. Wells Preparatory Elementary Academy, and Chicago’s DePaul University has a professorship named for Wells.

“Her name itself just reverberates through the community,” said Adams, who once worked in the Ida B. Wells Homes. “It was her voice, her stance that she took regarding lynching and how she used the media to wage that fight, what that fight meant to us. This was very significant for black people all over the country.”

Duster said the sculpture will “have a lot of meaning” for those who lived in the homes named after her.

“I think they will have a huge sense of pride,” she said. “Those who lived in Bronzeville when the homes were there, it’s a source of pride for our neighborhood. For others it’s a sense of pride in the city of Chicago.”

Mostly though, she said, remembering her great-grandmother will teach a new generation that one person can make a difference and defy the boundaries of society’s expectations based on race, class and gender.

“It’s important to speak up when you feel you’ve experienced something not fair,” Duster said. “Don’t wait for somebody else to say something. That’s one thing Ida did that I think is a legacy. She used her voice and talents to raise consciousness.”

___

Online:

Ida B. Wells Monument: http://www.idabwellsmonument.org/

Then, nearly a decade ago, the city tore the Wells housing project down, leaving the activist’s great-granddaughter Michelle Duster and her family worried Wells wouldn’t be remembered at all.

Now, to mark the 150th anniversary of Wells’ birth in 2012, an effort is under way to build a sculpture to honor her legacy at the site of the housing development and renew her relevance for future generations.

“When the housing project was coming down we were like ‘Her name is going to be gone,’” Duster said, sitting in her South Side home, a portrait of her great-grandmother hanging on the wall. “Her name and what she did can’t be lost with the housing project.”

The Ida B. Wells Commemorative Art Committee is seeking $300,000 in donations after commissioning noted Chicago artist Richard Hunt to create the sculpture, which is expected to combine images of Wells with inscriptions of her writings.

While Wells’ name endures on a grade school and a professorship in the city, the monument will aim to reflect the full legacy of a woman who was born into slavery in Mississippi and went on to become a well-respected crusader against injustice and outspoken anti-lynching activist.

Orphaned at age 16, Wells was left to support her five siblings. She became a teacher and moved to Memphis, where she sued a railroad because she wasn’t allowed to sit in the ladies coach. When she later became a journalist, Wells wrote about that incident and the lynchings of three of her male friends.

Her writings enraged others and led to Wells being forced to leave the South. She kept writing and speaking about lynching across the U.S. and England. She died in 1931 and is buried in Chicago.

Planning for the Ida B. Wells Homes started three years after her death, as a project of the Public Works Administration. The homes opened in 1941 and first lady Eleanor Roosevelt visited the complex, with its 1,662 units — more than 860 apartments and nearly 800 row houses and garden apartments.

By the 1990s, the housing complex had fallen to drugs and violence. In an infamous 1994 case, two boys, ages 10 and 11, dropped a 5-year-old boy to his death from a vacant 14-floor apartment. The boys were convicted on juvenile murder charges. The same year two neighborhood teenagers produced an award-winning radio documentary “Ghetto Life 101,” which aired on National Public Radio.

A year later, prosecutors charged seven people with running a cocaine ring out of the Ida B. Wells Homes that authorities say did such booming business drug buyers lined up 50 at a time.

By 2002, the last buildings were torn down in a nationally watched urban renewal plan initiated by then-Mayor Richard Daley that also targeted other housing projects — including Cabrini-Green, which saw the last of its high-rises crumble under wrecking balls earlier this year.

As Wells Homes residents focused on finding new places to live, some also requested something be done in tribute to the activist.

“I want people to remember Ida B. Wells the woman, not Ida B. Wells the housing community,” her great-granddaughter, Duster, said. “Something should be done to remember who she was. I think who she was as a woman got lost when it was attached to the housing projects.”

When the money is raised, that something will be a sculpture in the middle of a large grassy median on 37th Street and Langley Avenue in the historically African-American neighborhood of Bronzeville on the city’s South Side.

The site, across the street from a large park, isn’t far from the 19th-century stone house where Wells lived from 1919 to 1929. The Ida B. Wells-Barnett House is now a National Historic Landmark.

Hunt envisions a sculpture in his metallic, free-form style that will incorporate images and writings of Wells. He said he hopes to convey “what a courageous and intelligent and committed person that she was.”

Carol Adams, president of Chicago’s DuSable Museum of African-American History, said the sculpture will be a lasting monument to Wells and a place where people can learn about her influence. The neighborhood is already home to the Ida B. Wells Preparatory Elementary Academy, and Chicago’s DePaul University has a professorship named for Wells.

“Her name itself just reverberates through the community,” said Adams, who once worked in the Ida B. Wells Homes. “It was her voice, her stance that she took regarding lynching and how she used the media to wage that fight, what that fight meant to us. This was very significant for black people all over the country.”

Duster said the sculpture will “have a lot of meaning” for those who lived in the homes named after her.

“I think they will have a huge sense of pride,” she said. “Those who lived in Bronzeville when the homes were there, it’s a source of pride for our neighborhood. For others it’s a sense of pride in the city of Chicago.”

Mostly though, she said, remembering her great-grandmother will teach a new generation that one person can make a difference and defy the boundaries of society’s expectations based on race, class and gender.

“It’s important to speak up when you feel you’ve experienced something not fair,” Duster said. “Don’t wait for somebody else to say something. That’s one thing Ida did that I think is a legacy. She used her voice and talents to raise consciousness.”

___

Online:

Ida B. Wells Monument: http://www.idabwellsmonument.org/

Then, nearly a decade ago, the city tore the Wells housing project down, leaving the activist’s great-granddaughter Michelle Duster and her family worried Wells wouldn’t be remembered at all.

Now, to mark the 150th anniversary of Wells’ birth in 2012, an effort is under way to build a sculpture to honor her legacy at the site of the housing development and renew her relevance for future generations.

“When the housing project was coming down we were like ‘Her name is going to be gone,’” Duster said, sitting in her South Side home, a portrait of her great-grandmother hanging on the wall. “Her name and what she did can’t be lost with the housing project.”

The Ida B. Wells Commemorative Art Committee is seeking $300,000 in donations after commissioning noted Chicago artist Richard Hunt to create the sculpture, which is expected to combine images of Wells with inscriptions of her writings. They have raised a little more than 10 percent of the money so far.

While Wells’ name endures on a grade school and a professorship in the city, the monument will aim to reflect the full legacy of a woman who was born into slavery in Mississippi and went on to become a well-respected crusader against injustice and outspoken anti-lynching activist.

Orphaned at age 16, Wells was left to support her five siblings. She became a teacher and moved to Memphis, where she sued a railroad because she wasn’t allowed to sit in the ladies coach. When she later became a journalist, Wells wrote about that incident and the lynchings of three of her male friends.

Her writings enraged others and led to Wells being forced to leave the South. She kept writing and speaking about lynching across the U.S. and England. She died in 1931 and is buried in Chicago.

Planning for the Ida B. Wells Homes started three years after her death, as a project of the Public Works Administration. The homes opened in 1941 and first lady Eleanor Roosevelt visited the complex, with its 1,662 units — more than 860 apartments and nearly 800 row houses and garden apartments.

By the 1990s, the housing complex had fallen to drugs and violence. In an infamous 1994 case, two boys, ages 10 and 11, dropped a 5-year-old boy to his death from a vacant 14-floor apartment. The boys were convicted on juvenile murder charges. The same year two neighborhood teenagers produced an award-winning radio documentary “Ghetto Life 101,” which aired on National Public Radio.

A year later, prosecutors charged seven people with running a cocaine ring out of the Ida B. Wells Homes that authorities say did such booming business drug buyers lined up 50 at a time.

By 2002, the last buildings were torn down in a nationally watched urban renewal plan initiated by then-Mayor Richard Daley that also targeted other housing projects — including Cabrini-Green, which saw the last of its high-rises crumble under wrecking balls earlier this year.

As Wells Homes residents focused on finding new places to live, some also requested something be done in tribute to the activist.

“I want people to remember Ida B. Wells the woman, not Ida B. Wells the housing community,” her great-granddaughter, Duster, said. “Something should be done to remember who she was. I think who she was as a woman got lost when it was attached to the housing projects.”

When the money is raised, that something will be a sculpture in the middle of a large grassy median on 37th Street and Langley Avenue in the historically African-American neighborhood of Bronzeville on the city’s South Side.

The site, across the street from a large park, isn’t far from the 19th-century stone house where Wells lived from 1919 to 1929. The Ida B. Wells-Barnett House is now a National Historic Landmark.

Hunt envisions a sculpture in his metallic, free-form style that will incorporate images and writings of Wells. He said he hopes to convey “what a courageous and intelligent and committed person that she was.”

Carol Adams, president of Chicago’s DuSable Museum of African-American History, said the sculpture will be a lasting monument to Wells and a place where people can learn about her influence. The neighborhood is already home to the Ida B. Wells Preparatory Elementary Academy, and Chicago’s DePaul University has a professorship named for Wells.

“Her name itself just reverberates through the community,” said Adams, who once worked in the Ida B. Wells Homes. “It was her voice, her stance that she took regarding lynching and how she used the media to wage that fight, what that fight meant to us. This was very significant for black people all over the country.”

Duster said the sculpture will “have a lot of meaning” for those who lived in the homes named after her.

“I think they will have a huge sense of pride,” she said. “Those who lived in Bronzeville when the homes were there, it’s a source of pride for our neighborhood. For others it’s a sense of pride in the city of Chicago.”

Mostly though, she said, remembering her great-grandmother will teach a new generation that one person can make a difference and defy the boundaries of society’s expectations based on race, class and gender.

“It’s important to speak up when you feel you’ve experienced something not fair,” Duster said. “Don’t wait for somebody else to say something. That’s one thing Ida did that I think is a legacy. She used her voice and talents to raise consciousness.”

___

Online:

Ida B. Wells Monument: http://www.idabwellsmonument.org/

“I was dumbfounded, I actually cried,” said Francisco J. Nunez, 46, founder of the Young People’s Chorus of New York City. Nunez finished what he called a “very strenuous” board meeting when he received a call from a phone number he didn’t recognize.

“I get this call from a gentleman,” Nunez said. “He tells me to tell whoever I’m with to leave and go into a private room. Next thing I know I have to sit down at my desk. I started shaking.”

Recipients can spend the money however they like, but many like Nunez say the honor of the fellowship makes them focus on what they would accomplish in their fields if only they had the means. And now they do. His group’s many choir programs have more than 1,000 young singers.

“I feel like I have an opportunity here and a challenge to figure out something really great,” he said. The foundation cited him for “shaping the future of choral singing for children.”

Even though they’re referred to as the “genius grants,” MacArthur Foundation President Robert Gallucci said the more attractive quality is creativity.

“We hope we’re giving these people an opportunity they wouldn’t otherwise have to pursue their area or interest and let that spirit that has driven them to be free to accomplish more in the future,” Gallucci said. “We’re aiming here at the future.”

As in previous years, a wide variety of fields are represented on the list of recipients, including both arts and sciences. This year’s list includes a former U.S. poet laureate, an elder rights lawyer, an evolutionary geneticist, a jazz percussionist, a cellist and a developmental biologist.

The foundation relies on hundreds of anonymous nominators to offer names to be put in contention for the grants. Nominations only are accepted from the list of anonymous nominators. Recipients often say they have no idea who nominated them. Names are then given to a selection committee of about a dozen anonymous members. They meet regularly to review nominations, narrow the list and then make final recommendations to the MacArthur Foundation’s Board of Directors.

Including this year’s recipients the MacArthur Foundation has awarded 850 genius grants since 1981.

Jeanne Gang, 47, was the architect of Chicago’s 82-story Aqua Tower and her firm, Studio Gang, puts a focus on green building and sustainable design. MacArthur cited Gang’s designs for challenging “the aesthetic and technical possibilities of the art form.” Gang said she will put together a plan for the grant money and methodically follow it.

“I’ve always tried to maintain a very experimental side and research side of our practice,” Gang said. “(The grant) will feed into our research, our prototyping, our creativity.”

Kevin Guskiewicz’s studies at the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill have made strides in the diagnosis, treatment and prevention of sports-related concussions. Guskiewicz, 45, said he wants to use some of the grant money to develop rehabilitation plans for athletes and soldiers who suffer concussions. The foundation noted Guskiewicz’s combination of laboratory and on-the-field investigations to further his research.

“It’s sort of like piecing together a puzzle,” he said. “We still have several more pieces of the puzzle to put in place.”

Some MacArthur money could go to the ECO Girls project in southeastern Michigan. Tiya Miles, 41, started the project when she was on sabbatical from her job as a history professor at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor. The environmental mentorship program connects urban girls with college students, she said.

“We’ve been getting some small grants, but I didn’t know how I was going to fund this project,” Miles said.

Miles’ scholarship focuses on the history and legacy of slavery in the U.S. and the relationships between African and Cherokee people in early America. The foundation said Miles is “reframing and reinterpreting the history of our diverse nation.” The grant money affords her the luxury of taking time to think and reflect on her future, Miles said.

“I have lots of plans that I could imagine,” she said.

——

Online:

MacArthur Foundation: http://www.macfound.org/