Ida B. Wells' Campaign The anti-lynching campaign of Ida B. Wells took place in the post-Reconstruction era. By the end of the Civil War, slavery was abolished but there was a problem. No one knew what to do with all the ex-slaves. They didn’t know how to put them into the existing society. During this period, the government was starting to take control of social and political issues. They were taking it upon itself to make the regulations. Things were coming back to the way they were before. Although African Americans were free and had legal rights, the government was putting restrictions on them as if they were slaves again but without actually referring to t