From the Mouths of Babes

Ida B. Wells-Barnett (1862–1931) was an investigative journalist whose life and ideals were shaped by early encounters with literature, especially the novels of Charlotte Brontë, Charles Dickens, and Louisa May Alcott, along with Shakespeare. She first read through the Bible as a teenager and taught Sunday school all her adult life. After the 1909 lynchings in Cairo, Illinois, her husband asked her to travel from Chicago to gather evidence. In this account from her autobiography, she is referring to Psalm 8:2 (KJV).

“It was not very convenient for me to be leaving home at that time, and for once I was quite willing to let [others] attend to the job. Mr. Barnett replied that I knew it was important that somebody gather the evidence as well as he did, but if I was not willing to go, there was nothing more to be said. He picked up the evening paper and I picked up my baby and took her upstairs to bed. As usual I not only sang her to sleep but put myself to sleep lying there beside her.

“I was awakened by my oldest child, who said, ‘Mother, Pa says it is time to go.’ ‘Go where?’ I said. He said, ‘To take the train to Cairo.’ I said, ‘I told your father downstairs that I was not going. I don’t see why I should have to go and do the work that the others refuse.’ My boy was only ten years old. He and the other children had been present at the dinner table when their father told the story. He stood by the bedside a little while and then said, ‘Mother, if you don’t go nobody else will.’

“I looked at my child standing there by the bed reminding me of my duty, and I thought of that passage of Scripture which tells of the wisdom from the mouths of babes and sucklings. I thought if my child wanted me to go that I ought not to fall by the wayside [Matthew 13:4, 19], and I said, ‘Tell daddy it is too late to catch the train now, that I’ll go in the morning. It is better for me to arrive in Cairo after nightfall anyway.’

“Next morning all four of my children accompanied my husband and me to the station and saw me start on the journey. They were intensely interested and for the first time were willing to see me leave home.”

Reflection

Read Psalm 8. Why do you think the psalmist connects children with the defeat of God’s enemies in verse 2? How does this verse fit with the rest of the psalm? What does Wells-Barnett mean by “falling by the wayside”? How does love motivate her and her family? 

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