On February 1, 1990, the U.S. Postal Service issued the 25-cent Ida B. Wells commemorative stamp at the Museum of Science and Technology in Chicago, Illinois, which became the thirteenth entry in the popular Black Heritage Series of Stamps.The stamp design, by Thomas Blackshear of Novato, California, features a stunning portrait of Wells based on several photographs of her taken during the mid-1890s. A line of pickets forms a dramatic backdrop, symbolizing her fierce denunciation of racial hatred and her anti-lynching crusade. Blackshear also designed philatelic tributes to Jean Baptiste Pointe Du Sable, James Weldon Johnson, and A. Philip Randolph, the three most recent honorees in the Black Heritage Series of stamps.Born a slave in 1862, Ida B. Wells devoted her entire life to educating people about the horrors of discrimination and lynching. As editor and co-owner of The Memphis Free Speech, she channeled the power of the written word to awaken the nation