“workfare” programs save little money in the short term. They contended, however, that workfare would reduce welfare costs and move people away from government dependency over the long term. These state efforts paved the way for radical changes in federal welfare law. On August 22, 1996, President BILL CLINTON, a Democrat, signed the Personal Responsibility and Work Oppor- tunity Reconciliation Act of 1996 (popularly known as the Welfare Reform Act), a bill passed by the Republican-controlled Congress. The act eliminated some federal welfare programs, placed permanent ceilings on the amount of federal funding for welfare, and gave each state a block grant of money to help run its own welfare programs. The law also directed each state legislature to come up with a new welfare plan that meets new federal criteria. Under the 1996 law, federal funds can be used to provide a total of only five years of aid in a lifetime to a family. By the early 2000s, proponents of the law pronounced the reform effort a great success. States had exceed ed the requirement of halving their welfare rolls by 2002, many former welfare recipients had entered the workforce, and child poverty had been reduced for the first time since the early 1970s. However, some commen- tators attrib uted much of the success to the strong economy of the late 1990s that produced jobs for those coming off welfare. They also noted that welfare recipients were employed in mostly low-wage jobs. Federal Social Security Programs Until the 1996 Welfare Reform Act, the federal government had financed the three major welfare programs in the United States under the SOCIAL SECURITY ACT OF 1935 (42 U.S.C.A. § 301 et seq.): Supplemental Security Income (SSI), Medicaid, and Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC). The 1996 law abolished the AFDC program. These types of assistance are in addition to the benefits available to the aged, disabled, and unemployed workers and their dependents. They are distrib- uted to people who demonstrate financial need. Supplemental Security Income Indigent per- sons who are aged or disabled receive monthly checks through the SSI program to help provide them with a minimum standard of living. In 1974, SSI assumed the responsibility for three separate plans previously administered by the states for these recipients. Funds are taken from the U.S. Treasury to provide monthly benefits at a standard nationwide rate. Where state funds already supply such benefits, they supplement the amount provided by the federal government. The creation of the SSI program meant that applicants had to meet the same standards of eligibility in every state. For example, applicants must prove they are residents and citizens of the United States. The 1996 Welfare Reform Act cut billions of dollars of aid for legal ALIENS and completely excluded legal aliens from receiving SSI benefits. No new noncitizens could be added to the program after the date of enactment, and all legal aliens who were receiving SSI benefits will eventually be removed from the rolls, unless they meet one of the law’s exceptions. A recipient will not receive benefits for any full month that he is not living within the 50 states or the Distr ict of Columbia. Inmates in a public institution cannot collect SSI unless they reside in a community-run group home with a maximum of 16 residents. The passage of the CONTRACT WITH AMERICA Advancement Act of 1996 (P.L. 104-221) made a significant change in the basic philosophy of the SSI program. Beginning on the date of AFDC/TANF a Recipients, 1970 to 2005 7.2 10.4 5.1 11.3 6.2 13.5 0 2 4 6 8 10 12 14 16 1970 1980 1990 1995 2000 2005 Year Number of recipients (in millions) 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 Percentage of U.S. population a Aid to Families with Dependent Children and Temporary Assistance for Needy Families SOURCE: U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Office of the Assistant Secretary for Planning and Evaluation, Indicators of Welfare Dependence, annual re p ort to Con g ress, 2007. Number of recipients Recipients as percentage of U.S. population ILLUSTRATION BY GGS CREATIVE RESOURCES. REPRODUCED BY PER- MISSION OF GALE, A PART OF CENGAGE LEARNING. GALE ENCYCLOPEDIA OF AMERICAN LAW, 3 RD E DITION 358 WELFARE enactment (March 29, 1996), new applicants for SSI disability benefits are not eligible for benefits if drug addiction or alcoholism is a material factor in their disability. Unless they can qualify on some other medical basis, they cannot receive disability benefits. Previously, if a person had a medical condition that prevented them from working, they were considered disabled for SSI purposes, regardl ess of the cause of the disability. All persons who are otherwise qualified must show that their incomes are below the levels prescribed by federal la w and that they have no assets that can be used for their support. Various rules regulate the calculation of an applicant’s income. A person need not be totally devoid of assets in order to receive benefits. A home, for example, does not count as an asset fore these purposes, and the government does not impose liens (charges against property to secure the payment of a debt) against the homes of recipients of SSI benefits. Medicaid The largest government welfare pro- gram that provides benefits other than money for indigent persons is Medicaid . Medicaid was enacted in 1965 as an amendment to the Social Security Act of 1935, (Title XIX, 42 U.S.C.A. 1396). A state receives federal money if it furnishes additional financing and administers a medical program for the poor that satisfies federal stan dards. A state can supplement federal benefits with its own funds. Medica id is designed to make private medical care available to impoverished people. As long as their procedures are reasonable, states can establish their own methods of determining a Medicaid applicant’s income and resources and whether the applicant qualifies for aid. Prior to the ABOLITION of the AFDC program in the 1996 reform law, children and parents who received AFDC automatically qualified for Medicaid. The 1996 law provides Medicaid coverage to all families who meet their state’s July 1996 AFDC income and asset standards. When a family becomes ineligible for Medicaid coverage due to increased earnings or child- support income, it becomes eli gible for transi- tional Medicaid, regardless of whether the family received assistance under the block grant program that has replaced AFDC. As with SSI and other programs, however, the 1996 law den ies Medicaid eligibility to most legal immigrants. Except for REFUGEES, those who have claimed political ASYLUM, and a few other categories, immigrants entering the United States are ineligible for Medicaid for five years, with states having the option of extending this ban for a longer period. Immi- grants who had been receiving Medicaid as a result of receiving SSI are not eligible for Medicaid once their SSI benefits are cut off. Medicaid furnishes at least five general categories of treatment, including inpatient hospital services, outpatient hospital services, laboratory and x-ray services, skilled nursing home services, and physicians’ services. Gener- ally, each of these services is available to treat conditions that cause acute suffering, endanger life, result in illness or infirmity, interfere with the capacity for normal activity, or present a significant handicap. In addition, all states provide eye and dental care and prescription drugs. Almost all states provide physical ther- apy, hospice care, and rehabilitative services. Medicaid is a “vendor” plan because payment is made directly to the vendor (the person or entity that provides the services) rather than to the patient. O nly approved nursing homes, physicians, and other providers of medical care are entitled to receive Medicaid payments for their services. Since the early 1970s, rising medical costs have placed financial pressures on the Medicaid program. Conse- quently, health care providers are not fully reimbursed for the services they provide to Medicaid patients. When Medicaid began, persons who were eligible had the right to select their own doctors, hospitals, or other medical facilities. Because of skyrocketing medical expenditures, almost all states have received waivers from the federal government concerning the choice of physician. Aid to Families with Dependent Children Prior to 1996, the most controversial compo- nent of the welfare system was the AFDC program. AFDC was established by Congress to ensure the welfare and protection of needy dependent children by providing them, and a custodial relative, with basic necessities within the framework of the family relationship. It was abolished in the 1996 welfare reform act, replaced by block grants to the state s to fund welfare under new sets of rules and require- ments. The block grant, which is titled the Temporary Assistance to Needy Families GALE ENCYCLOPEDIA OF AMERICAN LAW, 3RD E DITION WELFARE 359 (TANF) block grant, converts AFDC to fixed funding. Under TANF, states receive a fixed level of resources for income support and work programs based on what they spent on these programs in 1994, without regard to subsequent changes in the level of need in a state. Every state was required to establish an AFDC system within broad federal guidelines, with the federal government providing funds for the state programs. The state plan had to be applied uniformly throughout the state, with the state providing some funding itself and designating one state agency to administer the program. Even though the 1996 law eliminated AFDC, many of the general categories and definitions contained in state-AFDC statutes and regulations remained relevant in new state welfare program laws for determining eligibility. A child is classified “dependent” if he or she has no parental support or care because of the death of a parent, the abandonment by a parent, or the physical or mental incapacity of a parent to fulfill the responsibilities to a child. Once a child qualifies as dependent under these stan- dards, the state agency will decide whether the child is “needy.” Each state establishes a minimum income level of subsistence. If the income of a child and the members of his or her family are below this level, these individuals are deemed needy. All sources of income actually received by the family are considered, as well as the value of all the family’s assets. Under the old AFDC system, each state fashioned exemptions depending upon the circumstances of the case. For example, a state might allow a portion of Social Security benefits received because of the death of a parent to be saved for the child’s future education. Once the state agency determines the income of members of a family and decides whether their assets are sufficient to meet their needs, it compares their income to the standard of need applied in that state. The standard of need is based on the number of family members, sometimes up to a specific maxi- mum. Under the old law, if the family’s income was inadequate to provide what the state considered a minimum amount for the family’s needs, AFDC benefits were issued. Under the 1996 law, there is no explicit requirement that the families get cash aid, making it possible for the states to provide vouchers or services rather than cash help. The law specifically eliminates the promise of help and eliminates individual entitlement to aid under federal law. In addition, if a state runs out of block grant funds for the year, and does not provide state funds, it can place new applicants on waiting lists. Under the old law, states received federal funds on an open-ended, entitlement basis. The 1996 law placed a yearly limit of $16.4 billion nationally on federal welfare spending that replaced AFDC and several other programs, with no provision to raise the limit in the future. Within this financial framework, the states have greater autonomy in determining how to spend the funds on welfare. However, the 1996 law imposed several important changes in national welfare policy. The 1996 law mandated that states increase the number of persons on welfar e who work. A minimum of half the families receiving public assistance must have an adult working a minimum of 30 hours per week, and two- parent families must work between 35 and 55 hours per week. If states do not meet these requirements, they can be penalized by losing a percentage of their TANF block grants. Adults cannot be penalized for failure to meet work requirements if their failure is based on the inability to find or afford child care for a child under the age of six. Otherwise, if an adult recipient refuses to participate in a work program, states must reduce the family’s assistance by a PRO RATA amount. States, however, have the option of increasing this penalty, including the termination of assistance to the entire family. Adults can also lose Medicaid as well as cash aid. The results of the TANF program have been dramatic. In 1997, the first year of the program, there were 10.5 million recipients; by 2007 the number of recipients had declined to 3.9 million. One of the criticisms of the AFDC program was that it allowed teenage mothers to set up independent living arrangements and receive AFDC. The 1996 law directs that minor parents can only receive TANF block grant funds if they are living at home or in another adult- supervised setting. They must attend hig h school or an alternative educational or training program as soon as their child is at least 12 weeks old. The most radical change in abolishing AFDC and moving to the TANF block grants was the limitation on families receiving TANF funds. Federal funds can be used only to GALE ENCYCLOPEDIA OF AMERICAN LAW, 3RD E DITION 360 WELFARE provide a total of five years of aid in a lifetime to a family. The law provides that states may give hardship exemptions of up to 20 percent of their average monthly caseload. However, the law also permits states to set limits shorter than five years. A state welfare assistance plan must set forth objective criteria for the delivery of benefits and for fair and equitable treatment, as well as how the state will provide opportunities for recipi- ents to appeal decisions against them. While the law and regulations governing AFDC were explicit regarding appeal rights, the 1996 law is more general in this area, leaving each state to devise due process protections in state law . In 2009 Congress passed the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act to stimulate the U.S. economy. The act created a new Emergency Contingency Fund under which states can receive 80 percent federal funding for increases in certain TANF-related expendi- tures for two years. Congress provided $5 billion to the fund. Food and Food Stamps The federal government provides food to those in need through several types of programs, including nutrition program s, and, most im- portantly, the Food Stamp program. The federal government sponsors special nutrition plans to promote child welfare. Such programs, including the Child and Adult Care Food Program (CACFP), provide federal grants of money and food to nonprofit elementary and secondary schools and to child-care institutions so that they can serve milk, well-balanced meals, and snacks to the children. Additional money is provided so that free or reduced-price food and milk can be given to children of needy families. These programs provide lunch and breakfast to children in public and private nonprofit schools. Pregnant and nursing mothers and their children up to age four who live in areas that have large numbers of people who are considered nutritional risks are eligible for a special program that supplies food supplements. The Food Stamp program, as provided by the Federal Food Stamp Act of 1964, is the most significant food plan in the United States. Needy individuals or households obtain food stamps (or official coupons) that can be exchanged like money at authorized stores. Some states create electronic banking accounts that allow a person to purchase food using an electronic bank card. The person’s account is debited the amount of the cash value of the stamps when he or she purchases food at a store. The federal government pays for the amount of the benefit received, and the states pay the costs of determining eligibility and distributing the stamps. The value of the food stamp allotment that state agencies are autho- rized to issue is based on the “thrifty food plan,” a low-cost food budget, reduced by an amount equal to 30 per cent of the household income. Prior to 1996, poor families with children that spent more than 50 per cent of their income on housing would have had their excess shelter costs included in calculating the amount of food stamps received. The 1996 law set a maximu m amount for the food stamp deduction for shelter costs. Public Housing Since the late 1930s, the federal government has provided funds to build public housing for the poor. Almost all programs rely on local public housing agencies created by state law or by a local government unit authorized by the state. Contracts between the DEPARTMENT OF HOUSING AND URBAN DEVELOPMENT and the local agency provide the means for the transfer of the federal funds. Applicants for public housing must meet income requirements. So as not to penalize people for improving their financial condition, tenants usually can continue to live in public housing after they surpass the income level that admitted them to the project. As the tenant’s income increases, he or she might be charged a higher rent so that the rent can be kept lower for other tenants with greater need. Federal law limits the percentage of a tenant’s income that can be charged for rent in low-income housing projects. Welfare Rights With the development of the welfare system, the courts have been called on to resolve disputes involving welfare recipients and government agencies. The most important case concerning the scope of welfare rights is Dandridge v. Williams, 397 U.S. 471, 90 S. Ct. 1153, 25 L. Ed. 2d 491 (1970). In Dandridge, a California law set an upper limit on the amount of welfare benefits that a family could receive, preventing larger families from receiving the GALE ENCYCLOPEDIA OF AMERICAN LAW, 3RD E DITION WELFARE 361 same amount per person as smaller families. Large-family recipients charged that the law violated the Social Security Act of 1935 and the EQUAL PROTECTION Clause of the FOURTEENTH AMENDMENT . The Court ruled that the California law did not violate either. It stated that the act does not prohibit a state from “providing the largest families with somewhat less than their ascertained PER CAPITA standard of need, ” given the finite amount of resources a state has available. The Court also contended that states might reasonably theorize that large families are able take advantage of other types of assistance unavailable to smaller households. The Court ruled that the law did not violate the Equal Protection Clause because it was free from “invidious discrimination” and that it reasonably worked to further the state’s interest of “encouraging employment and in maintaining an equitable balance between welfare families and the families of the working poor.” An equally compelling welfare case was heard in the late 1990s. In Saenz v. Roe, 526 U.S. 489, 119 S.Ct. 1518, 143 L.Ed.2d 689 (1999), the SUPREME COURT struck down a California law that limited new residents to the amount of welfare benefits they would have received in the state of their prior residence. The law was enacted in an attempt to discourage individuals from moving into the state in order to gain higher welfare benefits. California officials estimated that, each year, more than A Brief History of Welfare Reform T he Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act of 1996 (110 Stat. 2105), popularly known as the Welfare Reform Act, is the most significant piece of welfare legisla- tion since the NEW DEAL administration of FRANKLIN D. ROOSEVELT. The 1996 act was the culmination of a 30-year debate over the effectiveness of government welfare programs and the proper role of govern- ment assistance. The act’s goals of moving people off the welfare rolls, limiting the amount of time on public assistance, and mandating that welfare recipients’ work were all based on the idea of personal responsibility. For con- servatives, the law delivered a blow to the modern liberal welfare state. For liberals, the act raised as many questions as it answered. It was unclear how states would provide training to welfare reci- pients that would allow them to find employment paying a living wage. More ominously, what would happen to chil- dren when families lost their welfare benefits permanently? The history of welfare reform reveals that the question of personal res- ponsibility versus assistance to those in need has been a constant in the debate over welfare. Dissatisfaction with welfare began during the 1950s. Critics began to assert that the federal Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC) pro- gram had made welfare a way of life, rather than simply short-term assistance, for many in the program. With this perception, a backlash set in. In the 1950s and early 1960s, welfare reform was limited to various states’ attempts to impose residency require- ments on welfare applicants and remove illegitimate children from the welfare rolls. Many states also passed so-called “man in the house” rules, which cut off benefits when a man lived in the home. By the late 1960s, such laws had been struck down on the ground that the EQUAL PROTECTION clause of the FOUR- TEENTH AMENDMENT requires the govern- ment to treat all persons in similar situations equally. During the 1960s, the Johnson administration declared an ostensible “war on poverty” with its GREAT SOCIETY programs: Head Start, the Job Corps, food stamps, and MEDICAID funded education, job training, direct food assistance, and direct medical assistance. Although the poverty rate declined in the 1960s, more than 4 million new recipi- ents signed up for welfare. With the election of RICHARD M. NIXON as president in 1968, the conservative backlash against liberal policies began to take hold. Nixon was the first president since Roosevelt to offer major national welfare legislation. His 1969 Family Assistance Plan, however, pleased neither liberals nor conservatives. Nixon pro- posed giving needy families with children $1,600 annually; as a work incentive, they would be allowed to keep any EARNED INCOME up to approximately $4,000. More important, all welfare recipients except mothers with children under the age of three would be required to work. Liberals rejected the plan because they believed that the support levels were too low and that the work requirement was punitive. Conservatives were unim- pressed by Nixon’s goal of reducing the welfare BUREAUCRACY through a pro- gram that appeared to expand public assistance. The program died in Congress in 1972. GALE ENCYCLOPEDIA OF AMERICAN LAW, 3RD E DITION 362 WELFARE 50,000 people applying for benefits had lived in another state during the previous 12 months. Many of these individuals came from states that had much lower benefit levels. For example, a family of four who arrived from Mississippi would have received $144 in that state. In comparison, but for the one-year-residency limitation, they would have received $673 in California. In a previous case (Shapiro v. Thompson, 394 U.S. 618, 89 S.Ct. 1322, 22 L.Ed.2d 600 [1969]), the Court had struck down the laws of three states that denied all welfare benefits to persons who had resided in their states for less than one year. In that case, the Court ruled that it was “constitutionally impermissible” for a state to enact durational residency requirements that sought to inhibit the migration of needy persons into the state. These laws restricted a person’s right to travel, which is protected under the Fourteenth Amendment. California argued that its law had not been enacted for the purpose of inhibiting the migration of poor people and that it merely reduced the level of benefits rather denying them. The Supreme Court disagreed. It ruled that persons have a right to travel from state to state and that once a pe rson decides to reside in a state he or she must be treated like all other citizens of that state. The Court concluded that “the state’s legitimate interest in saving money provides no justification for its deci- sion to discriminate among equally eligible citizens.” Citizens, regardless of their incomes, Instead of reform, welfare programs underwent major expansions during the Nixon administration. States were re- quired to provide food stamps, and Supplemental Security Income (SSI) consolidated aid for aged, blind, and disabled persons. The Earned Income Credit provided the working poor with direct cash assistance in the form of tax credits. As spending grew, so did the welfare rolls. During the 1970s, advocates of welfare reform promoted the theory of “workfare.” The idea initially referred to working off welfare payments through public service jobs, but it developed into the concept of using training and educa- tion to help recipients gain indepen- dence. By the 1980s, workfare had emerged as the future of welfare reform. President RONALD REAGAN came into office in 1981 as a harsh critic of welfare. During his first term, he helped secure deep cuts in AFDC spending, including the reduction of benefits to working recipients of public assistance. In addi- tion, the states were given the option of requiring the majority of recipients to participate in workfare programs. During the 1980s the welfare system was subjected to many critical attacks, most notably in sociologist Charles Murray’s book Losing Ground: American Social Policy, 1950–1980 (1984). Murray argued that welfare hurt the poor by making them less well off and discourag- ing them from working. The system effectively trapped single-parent families in a cycle of welfare dependency, cre- ating more, rather than less, poverty. Murray proposed abolishing federal welfare and replacing it with short-term local programs. Though many criticized Murray’s data and conclusions, most agreed that welfare produced disincen- tives to work. During the 1980s, 40 states set up so-called welfare-to-work programs that provided education and training. The federal Family Support Act of 1988 (23 U.S.C.A. § 125) adopted this approach, directing all states to phase in compre- hensive welfare-to-work programs by 1990. Each state was to implement education, job training, and job place- ment programs for welfare recipients. Nevertheless, the initiative proved un- successful because the states lacked the money needed for federal matching funds. By 1993, only one in five eligible recipients was enrolled in a training program. Thus, the stage was set for the 1996 welfare reform legislation. It did much of what Murray had advocated: It made personal responsibility and work central to the welfare agenda, and it shifted welfare to the states. State gov- ernments were given fixed blocks of money known as Temporary Assistance to Needy Families (TANF), which they could use as they saw fit, as long as they imposed work requirements and limited a family’s stay on welfare to five years. By placing ceilings on the amount of money states receive for welfare, the 1996 act announced that public welfare programs would shrink rather than grow over time. This 1996 welfare reform law, known as the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act (PRWORA), was considered revolu- tionary by many experts. With a strong economy and an unemployment rate that by the late 1990s was down to only 4 percent, states were more confident about making welfare reform work. By 2000, the economy began to slow down, and the SEPTEMBER 11, 2001, attacks in New York and Washington further slowed economic growth. States that had once been flush wi th cash now faced deficits, some of them sub- stantial. Meanwhil e, the federal govern- ment’s TANF funding was schedul ed to end on October 1, 2002, but Congress reauthorized the program. However, by 2007 the number of TANF re- cipients had declined in ten years from 10.5 million to 3.9 million. Funding remained relatively unchanged for TANT until 2009, when Congress made a one-time infusion of $5 billion to help states through the severe economic recession. GALE ENCYCLOPEDIA OF AMERICAN LAW, 3RD E DITION WELFARE 363 have the right to choose to be citizens of the state in which they reside. The states, however, “do not have any right to select their citizens.” In an attempt to discourage welfare recipi- ents from litigating the 1996 welfare reform law, Congress prohibited legal aid groups that receive federal money from taking such cases. The Supreme Court, in Legal Services Corpora- tion v. Velazquez, 531 U.S. 533, 121 S.Ct. 1043, 149 L.Ed.2d 63 (2001), overturned this restric- tion as unconstitutional. It concluded that once Congress appropriated funds for providing legal assistance to private citizens, FIRST AMENDMENT rights were implicated. A federally funded legal aid attorney “speaks on behalf of a private, indigent client in a welfare benefits claim, while the Government’s message is delivered by the attorney defending the benefits decision.” Therefore, the attorney’s advice to the client and advocacy to the court was private speech that the government could not restrict. FURTHER READINGS Axinn, June, and Mark Stern. 2004. Social Welfare: A History of American Response to Need. 6th ed. Boston: Allyn and Bacon. Haskins, Ron. 2007. Work over Welfare: The Inside Story of the 1996 Welfare Reform Law. Washington, D.C.: Brookings Institution Press. Howard, Christopher.2008. The Welfare State Nobody Knows: Debunking Myths about U.S. Social Policy. Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton Univ. Press. Kornbluh, Felicia. 2007. The Battle for Welfare Rights: Politics and Poverty in Modern America. Philadelphia: Univ. of Pennsylvania Press. CROSS REFERENCES Health Care Law; Health Insurance; Homeless Person; Old- Age, Survivors, and Disability Insurance. v WELLS-BARNETT, IDA BELL Ida Bell Wells-Barnett was a prominent and often controversial African American reformer who spoke out against racial oppression in the United States at the turn of the twentieth century. The daughter of slaves, Wells-Barnett conducted a self-described crusade for justice to protest the savage LYNCHINGS of hundreds of African Americans in the South. Her impas- sioned antilynching lectures and publications had an enormous effect on public opinion in the United States and Great Britain. Outspoken and self-confident, Wells-Barnett was viewed with hostility by many whites and rebuffed by several African American leaders who resented her frequent criticism of their efforts. Yet, even her detracto rs conceded that Wells-Barnett’s unshakable commitment to the social, political, and economic advancement of African Amer- icans propelled the struggle for CIVIL RIGHTS. Born July 16, 1862, in Holly Springs, Mississippi, Wells-Barnett was the oldest of eight children of James Wells and Elizabeth Warrenton Wells. After the Civil War, her father was a carpenter and a leader in local RECONSTRUCTION activities. Wells-Barnett attended Shaw Univ ersity (later renamed Rust College), an African American school for all grade levels establi shed in Holly Springs in 1866 by Freedmen’s Aid, a church-sponsored effort to educate former slaves. The northern Meth- odist missionaries who taught at the school considered Wells-Barn ett an exemplary student. When Wells-Barnett was 16 years old, her parents and youngest brother died in a yellow fever epidemic. Wells-Barnett insisted on rais- ing her surviving siblings while teaching school in a rural district. By 1883 her brothers were old enough to begin work as carpenters, so Wells-Barnett and her sisters moved to Mem- phis to live with an aunt. Wells-Barnett attended classes at Fisk University and taught school in Memphis until 1891, when she was fired from her job for criticizing the segrega- tionist policies of the Memphis School Board. Angry articles by Wells-Barnett in the small newspaper Free Speech and Headlight de- nounced the limited educational opportunities for African Americans in “separate-but-equal” Memphis schools. Writing under the pen name Iola, Wells-Barnett discovered her talent for journalism and her calling as a social activist. In 1892 she published her famous pamphlet Southern Horrors: Lynch Law in All Its Phases. This pamphlet, along with 1895’s A Red Record, documented her research on and campaign against LYNCHING. Having examined many accounts of lynching based on alleged “rape of white women,” she concluded that Southerners concocted the RAPE excuse to hide their real reason for lynching black men: black economic progress. In 1893 she and other black leaders, among them FREDERICK DOUGLASS, organized a boycott of the 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition in Chicago, and her coalition produced a pam- phlet to be distributed during the exposition. GALE ENCYCLOPEDIA OF AMERICAN LAW, 3RD E DITION 364 WELLS-BARNETT, IDA BELL Called Why the Colored American Is Not in the World’s Columbian Exposition, it detailed in English and a few other languages the workings of Southern lynchings and other issues black Americans faced at the time. Wells-Barnett became co-owner and editor of Free Speech and a vocal opponent of JIM CROW LAWS in the South. In one Free Speech article, she described her own frustrating 1884 lawsuit against the Chesapeake, Ohio, & Southwestern Railroad. The dispute began when Wells- Barnett boarded a train in Memphis en route to Woodstock, Tennessee. After taking her usual seat in the “ladies car,” which was a first-class coach, she and the other African American women in that car were told by the conductor to move to the smoking car, which was not first-class. By Tenne ssee law, African Americans were to be assigned separate and equal accommodations on public transportation. When Wells-Barnett refused to sit in the smoking car, she was forced off the train. Later, she sued the railroad and won $500 in damages from a lower state court. Her triumph was short-lived, however, because the award was overturned in 1887 by the Supreme Court of Tennessee, which determined that a smoking car could indeed serve as a first-class accom- modation for African Americans (Chesapeake, Ohio, & Southwestern Railroad Co. v. Wells, 85 Tenn. (1 Pickle) 613, 4 S.W. 5 [1887]). The Tennessee high court suggested that Wells- Barnett’s real motive in refusing to sit in the smoking car was to harass the railroad and to lay the groundwork for a profitable lawsuit. The court chastised Wells-Barnett for failing to try in GOOD FAITH to secure a comfortable seat. The stark injustice of the court’s reversal fueled Wells-Barnett’s determination to speak out against the mistreatment of African Americans. For Wells-Barnett, the pivotal event in her activist career was the LYNCHING in 1892 of her friends Calvin McDowell, Thomas Moss, and Henry Stewart, three African American mer- chants from Memphis. The men owned the People’s Grocery, a thriving operation that had cut into the profits of its white competitors. When a mob of white men was deputized to arrest the three merchants on trumped-up Ida B. Wells-Barnett. LIBRARY OF CONGRESS ▼▼ ▼▼ Ida Bell Wells-Barnett 1862–1931 18501850 19001900 19251925 19501950 18751875 ❖ 1862 Born, Holly Springs, Miss. 1861–65 U.S. Civil War 1879 Passed Mississippi teacher's exam 1883 Moved to Memphis, Tenn. 1887 Tenn. Supreme Court ruled in Chesapeake, Ohio & Southwestern Railroad Co. v. Wells that smoking cars could serve as first-class accommodations for blacks 1889 Bought one-third interest in Memphis Free Speech 1891 Fired from teaching job for criticizing Memphis School Board 1892–93 Carried anti-lynching campaign from U.S. to Great Britain 1895 A Red Record publis hed 1896 Supreme Court upheld "separate but equal" rail accommodations in Plessy v. Ferguson 1914–18 World War I 1920 Helped found the Chicago Negro Fellowship League, which aided newly arrived migrants from the South 1931 Died, Chicago, Ill. 1939–45 World War II ◆◆◆◆◆◆◆ ◆ ❖ GALE ENCYCLOPEDIA OF AMERICAN LAW, 3RD E DITION WELLS-BARNETT, IDA BELL 365 criminal charges, violence erupted, and the innocent African Americans were hanged. Wells-Barnett was outraged. She wrote a scathing editorial in Free Speech, denouncing not only the MURDER of her friends but also the offensive, widely accepted rationale for most lynchings. Wells-Barnett observed that contrary to southern myth, lynchings were rarely if ever spontaneous group acts in retaliation for sexual misconduct by African American men. A lynch mob was actually a barbaric mechanism for maintaining power among whites and for denying African Americans their civil rights. Protecting the reputation of southern white women was a smoke screen. Wells-Barnett also asserted that any sexual liaisons between African American men and white women were consen- sual, an observation that enraged much of the conservative white population. After the editorial was published, an angry throng of white men stormed the Free Speech office and destroyed Wells-Barnett’s printing press. Wells-Barnett was in Philadelphia at the time. These episodes of mob rule, so contrary to the democratic ideal, led Wells-Barnett to launch an anti-lynching campaign. Wells-Barnett relied not only on righteous indignation but on shocking national statistics to make her case against lynching. In articles and speeches, she quoted a gr im fact: in 1894, 132 lega l execu- tions were carried out in the United States, and 197 lynchings occurred. African Americans were receiving the death penalty from self- appointed white citizens without the benefit of criminal investigations, formal charges, LEGAL REPRESENTATION , or trials. Wells-Barnett’s find- ings were published in 1895 in a detailed book entitled A Red Record: Tabulated Statistics and Alleged Causes of Lynchings in the United States, 1892–1893–1894. In 1893 Wells-Barnett carried her anti- lynching campaign to Great Britain in the hope of exerting international pressure on U.S. legislators to enact antilynching laws. She was well received in Great Britain and spoke to large crowds. While in Europe, she was a guest at several women’s civic clubs and was impressed with their worthwhile, community-minded activities. Wells-Barnett exported the idea to the United States, where African American women’s clubs flourished. In 1895 Wells-Barnett married Ferdinand L. Barnett, the first African American state’s attorney in Illinois. After the marriage, Wells- Barnett curtailed her international speaking but continued to write in national publications. The couple lived in Chicago and had four children. Wells-Barnett worked hard to improve condi- tions for Afric an Americans in Chicago by serving as a social worker and community organizer. Wells-Barnett was well-known throughout the United States, yet the political power she craved eluded her. Although she was involved in the formation of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, she alienated many of her African American colleagues with her sharp tongue and unbend- ing manner. Also, she was an unreserved critic of the accommodationist position favored by BOOKER T. WASHINGTON, the founder of Tuskegee Institute and the most influential African American leader at the time. Wells-Barnett favored a militant approach to achieving racial equality and was not welcome in the Washing- ton camp. Other women such as Mary McLeod Bethune eventually eclipsed Wells-Barnett in influence. A combination of politics and personal animosity prevented Wells-Barnett from achieving the level of African American leadership she sought. Although Wells-Barnett felt stymied near the end of her career, she earned an honored and lasting place in history as one of the first African American civil rights activists. Daughter Alfreda M. Barnett Duster wrote that Wells- Barnett “fought a lonely and almost single- handed fight, with the single-mindedness of a crusader, long before men or women of any race entered the arena” (Wells 1970, xxxii). Wells-Barnett died in Chicago on March 25, 1931, at the age of 68. In 1950 the city of Chicago named her one of the 25 most outstanding women in its history. FURTHER READINGS Franklin, John Hope, and August Meier, eds. 1982. Black Leaders of the Twentieth Century. Urbana: Univ. of Illinois Press. McMurry, Linda O. 1998. To Keep the Waters Troubled: The Life of Ida B. Wells. New York: Oxford Univ. Press. Schechter, Patricia A. 2001. Ida B. Wells-Barnett and American Reform, 1880–1930. Chapel Hill: Univ. of North Carolina Press. Wells, Ida B. 1970. Crusade for Justice: The Autobiography of Ida B. Wells. Chicago: Univ. of Chicago Press. ETERNAL VIGILANCE IS THE PRICE OF LIBERTY , AND IT DOES SEEM THAT NOTWITHSTANDING ALL THOSE SOCIAL AGENCIES AND ACTIVITIES THERE IS NOT VIGILANCE , WHICH SHOULD BE EXERCISED IN THE PRESERVATION OF OUR RIGHTS . —IDA B. WELLS- B ARNETT GALE ENCYCLOPEDIA OF AMERICAN LAW, 3RD E DITION 366 WELLS-BARNETT, IDA BELL WELSH V. UNITED STATES A 1970 U.S. Supreme Court decision, Welsh v. United States, 398 U.S. 333, 90 S. Ct. 1792, 26 L. Ed. 2d 308, held that a person could be exempted from compulsory military service based solely on moral or ethical beliefs against war. The VIETNAM WAR was an unpopular conflict that depended on the military draft to maintain adequate numbers of persons in the ARMED SERVICES . A man who was selected for compul- sory military service could be excused if he signed a statement in the SELECTIVE SERVICE form that provided: “I am, by reason of my religious training and belief, conscientiously opposed to participation in war of any form.” In Welsh, the Supreme Court ruled that a person did not have to profess a religious belief to qualify for CONSCIENTIOUS OBJECTOR status. Under Welsh,a person’s strongly held moral or ethical beliefs can provide an adequate basis for exemption from military service. In 1966 Elliot A. Welsh II was convicted for refusing to submit to induction into the armed forces in violation of federal law, and was sentenced to imprisonment for three years. Welsh had signed the conscientious objection statement after crossing out “my religious training and.” He believed that killing in war is unethical and immoral, and the sincerity of his beliefs was not questioned. However, his conscientious-objector claim was denied be- cause it was not predicated upon a belief in a “Supreme Being,” which was a statutory requirement for an exemption at that time. Welsh appealed his conviction to the U.S. Supreme Court. The Court ruled that a draft registrant’s conscientious objection to all war must be derived from his moral, ethical, or religious convictions about what is right and wrong and that it had to be maintained with the intensity of more conventional religious beliefs. If a draft registrant’s beliefs represent an analogue to worship of God—if they serve as a religion in the person’s life—then the draft registrant is entitled to a religious conscientious objector exemption, just as someone whose conscientious opposition to w ar stems from orthodox religious beliefs. The government argued that Welsh’scon- victions were predominantly philosophical, sociological, or personal in nature and therefore were within the statutory exclusion for conscientious objector status. The Court rejected this argument, ruling that this provi- sion should not be construed to exclude those who are opinionated about domestic and international affairs or those whose conscien- tious objection to participation in all wars is based upon public policy considerations. It concluded that only those persons whose beliefs are not fervently held or whose objections to war are based on considerations of expediency or pragmatism could be excluded from consci- entious objector status. In this case, the Court held that Welsh’s beliefs met its test and therefore he was entitled to conscientious objector status and a reversal of his conviction. FURTHER READINGS Kohn, Stephen M. 1986. Jailed for Peace: The History of American Draft Law Violators, 1658–1985. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press. CROSS REFERENCE Conscientious Objector. Elliot A. Welsh II speaks to reporters on June 15, 1970, shortly after learning of the U.S. Supreme Court ruling in his favor that a person could be exempted from military service based solely on moral or ethical beliefs against war. AP IMAGES GALE ENCYCLOPEDIA OF AMERICAN LAW, 3 RD E DITION WELSH V. UNITED STATES 367 . only to GALE ENCYCLOPEDIA OF AMERICAN LAW, 3RD E DITION 360 WELFARE provide a total of five years of aid in a lifetime to a family. The law provides that states may give hardship exemptions of up. recipients Recipients as percentage of U.S. population ILLUSTRATION BY GGS CREATIVE RESOURCES. REPRODUCED BY PER- MISSION OF GALE, A PART OF CENGAGE LEARNING. GALE ENCYCLOPEDIA OF AMERICAN LAW, 3 RD E DITION 358. the GALE ENCYCLOPEDIA OF AMERICAN LAW, 3RD E DITION WELFARE 361 same amount per person as smaller families. Large-family recipients charged that the law violated the Social Security Act of 1935