The Red Record

In 2018, The New York Times launched “Overlooked,” a series of obituaries for remarkable people whose deaths the paper had never reported. Among the very first was an obituary for Ida B. Wells, who was born into slavery in 1862 and became one of the best-known African American women of her time. A leader of the early civil rights movement, she pioneered methods of investigative journalism that are still used today. Her best-known works, including The Red Record, are devoted to the horrific practice of lynching in the American South.