Ida B. Wells-Barnett, ne Ida Bell Wells, (born July 16, 1862, Holly Springs, Mississippi, U.S.died March 25, 1931, Chicago, Illinois), American journalist who led an anti-lynching crusade in the United States in the 1890s. Her groundbreaking work, which included collecting statistics in a practice that today is called "data journalism," established that the lawless killing of Black people was a systematic practice, especially in the South in the era following Reconstruction. Wells died she had faded from public view somewhat, and major newspapers did not note her passing. It is considered a sufficient excuse and reasonable justification to put a prisoner to death under this unwritten law for the frequently repeated charge that these lynching horrors are necessary to prevent crimes against women. But the negro resents and utterly repudiates the efforts to blacken his good name by asserting that assaults upon women are peculiar to his race. She became involved in local politics in Chicago and also with the nationwide drive for women's suffrage. It has been to the interest of those who did the lynching to blacken the good name of the helpless and defenseless victims of their hate. Speeches. Our countrys national crime is lynching. . But men, women, and children were the victims of murder by individuals and murder by mobs, just as they had been when killed at the demands of the unwritten law to prevent negro domination. Negroes were killed for disputing over terms of contracts with their employers. Under the authority of a national law that gave every citizen the right to vote, the newly-made citizens chose to exercise their suffrage. Wells moved from Memphis to Brooklyn. The thief who stole a horse, the bully who jumped a claim, was a common enemy. Today, we should take time to pause . Third, for the honor of Anglo-Saxon civilization. Although the victims of lynchings were members of various ethnicities, after roughly 4 million enslaved African Americans were emancipated, they became the primary targets of white Southerners. Ida B. They were hanged . It is not the creature of an hour, the sudden outburst of uncontrolled fury, or the unspeakable brutality of an insane mob. American Our nation has been active and outspoken in its endeavors to right the wrongs of the Armenian Christian, the Russian Jew, the Irish Home Ruler, the native women of India, the Siberian exile, and the Cuban patriot. Wells in Chicago, Illinois, January, 1900, https://etc.usf.edu/lit2go/185/civil-rights-and-conflict-in-the-united-states-selected-speeches/4375/speech-on-lynch-law-in-america-given-by-ida-b-wells-in-chicago-illinois-january-1900/, Civil Rights and Conflict in the United States: Selected Speeches, Florida Center for Instructional Technology. Five of this number were females. Wells." No matter that our laws presume every man innocent until he is proved guilty; no matter that it leaves a certain class of individuals completely at the mercy of another class; no matter that it encourages those criminally disposed to blacken their faces and commit any crime in the calendar so long as they can throw suspicion on some negro, as is frequently done, and then lead a mob to take his life; no matter that mobs make a farce of the law and a mockery of justice; no matter that hundreds of boys are being hardened in crime and schooled in vice by the repetition of such scenes before their eyesif a white woman declares herself insulted or assaulted, some life must pay the penalty, with all the horrors of the Spanish Inquisition and all the barbarism of the Middle Ages. And the world has accepted this theory without let or hindrance. Wells argues against the lynching of African Americans of the time. No emergency called for lynch law. In Memphis, Wells found work as a teacher. Ida B. Who Were the Muckrakers in the Journalism Industry? For months, Wells traveled throughout the South investigating lynchings. And it hit home for Ida B. What becomes a crime deserving capital punishment when the tables are turned is a matter of small moment when the negro woman is the accusing party. massacre.. $147,748.74 In many cases there has been open expression that the fate meted out to the victim was only what he deserved. To those who fail to be convinced from any other point of view touching this momentous question, a consideration of the economic phase might not be amiss. A new name was given to the killings and a new excuse was invented for so doing. The lynching record for a quarter of a century merits the thoughtful study of the American people. Southern Horrors: Lynch Law in All Its Phases by Wells-Barnett, Ida B., 1862-1931. Lit2Go Edition. . Her writings infuriated a portion of the citys white population, who ransacked the office of her newspaper. Ida B. Wells-Barnett, born enslaved in Mississippi, was a pioneering activist and journalist. Wells was already out of town when she realized that an editorial she'd written had caused a riot. Second: Crimes against women is the excuse . She was the eldest of eight children. Following the end of the Civil War, her father, who as an enslaved person had been the carpenter on a plantation, was active in Reconstruction period politics in Mississippi. WELLS "Lynch Law," says the Virginia Lancet, "as known by that appellation, had its origin in 1780 in a combination of citizens of Pittsylvania County, Virginia, entered into for the purpose of . Cookies collect information about your preferences and your devices and are used to make the site work as you expect it to, to understand how you interact with the site, and to show advertisements that are targeted to your interests. It is generally known that mobs in Louisiana, Colorado, Wyoming, and other States have lynched subjects of other countries. Humiliating indeed, but altogether unanswerable, was the reply of the French press to our protest: Stop your lynchings at home before you send your protests abroad.. The sentiment of the country has been appealed to, in describing the isolated condition of white families in thickly populated negro districts; and the charge is made that these homes are in as great danger as if they were surrounded by wild beasts. She went on to found and become integral in groups. Though her campaign against lynching did not stop the practice, her groundbreaking reporting and writing on the subject was a milestone in American journalism. Not only this, but so potent is the force of example that the lynching mania has spread throughout the North and middle West. But the spirit of mob procedure seemed to have fastened itself upon the lawless classes, and the grim process that at first was invoked to declare justice was made the excuse to wreak vengeance and cover crime [in the South]. In many instances the leading citizens aid and abet by their presence when they do not participate, and the leading journals inflame the public mind to the lynching point with scare-head articles and offers of rewards. The entire number is divided among the following States: Alabama 22 Montana. 4Arkansas.. 25 New York 1California 3 North Carolina 5Florida 11 North Dakota.. 1Georgia 17 Ohio. 3Idaho.. 8 South Carolina 5Illinois.. 1 Tennessee.. 28Kansas. 3 Texas 15Kentucky.. 9 Virginia 7Louisiana. 29 West Virginia. The negro has been too long associated with the white man not to have copied his vices as well as his virtues. Ida B. . In "Lynch Law in All Its Phases," Wells details the events surrounding Moss's lynching in Memphis. From the early 1890s she labored mostly alone in her effort to raise the nation's awareness and indignation about these usually unpunished murders. Following the death of both her parents of yellow fever in 1878, Ida, at age 16, began teaching in a one-room schoolhouse in rural Mississippi. The alleged menace of universal suffrage having been avoided by the absolute suppression of the negro vote, the spirit of mob murder should have been satisfied and the butchery of negroes should have ceased. But the reign of the national law was short-lived and illusionary. Wells, an anti-lynching activist in the United States, was born the eldest of eight children to slave parents. Wells, "Lynch Law in America: The Arena vol 23 (January 1900):15-24. And the world has accepted this theory without let or hindrance. Seventh Annual Message to Congress (1907). In Texarkana, the year before, men and boys amused themselves by cutting off strips of flesh and thrusting knives into their helpless victim. There it has flourished ever since, marking the thirty years of its existence with the inhuman butchery of more than ten thousand men, women, and children by shooting, drowning, hanging, and burning them alive. . In many cases there has been open expression that the fate meted out to the victim was only what he deserved. Of this number, 160 were of negro descent. But the spirit of mob procedure seemed to have fastened itself upon the lawless classes, and the grim process that at first was invoked to declare justice was made the excuse to wreak vengeance and cover crime [in the South] . Lynch Law in America Civil Rights Movement Domestic Policy Gender Gender and Equality Personal Race and Equality Social Reform by Ida B. Wells-Barnett January, 1900 Cite Free Study Questions No study questions Introduction Source: The Arena 23 (January 1900): 15-24. It presents three salient facts: First: Lynching is color line murder. This confession, while humiliating in the extreme, was not satisfactory; and, while the United States cannot protect, she can pay. The Negros Place in World Reorganization, The Subjective Necessity of Social Settlements, Some Reasons Why We Oppose Votes for Women, National Association Opposed to Woman Suffrage. A lynching is the public killing of an individual who has not received any due process. Book from Project Gutenberg: Southern Horrors: Lynch Law in All Its Phases. In Texarkana, the year before, men and boys amused themselves by cutting off strips of flesh and thrusting knives into their helpless victim. The mayor gave the school children a holiday and the railroads ran excursion trains so that the people might see a human being burned to death. Wells make about lynching in nineteenth-century America? Web. Wells would fight for justice and equality in the African American community. And in June 2018 the Chicago city government voted to honor Wells by naming a street for her. Hardly had the sentences dried upon the statute-books before one Southern State after another raised the cry against negro domination and proclaimed there was an unwritten law that justified any means to resist it. March 01, 2023. . According to Wells figures, 66% percent of the victims were African Americans, 34% were white or of some other race. That gave an impetus to the hunt, and the Atlanta Constitutions reward of $500 keyed the mob to the necessary burning and roasting pitch. This condition of affairs were brutal enough and horrible enough if it were true that lynchings occurred only because of the commission of crimes against womenas is constantly declared by ministers, editors, lawyers, teachers, statesmen, and even by women themselves. Wells became deeply interested in the lynching problem after three Black businessmen she knew were killed by a white mob outside Memphis, Tennessee, in 1892. . And she was certainly no stranger to death threats. Hardly had the sentences dried upon the statute books before one Southern State after another raised the cry against negro domination and proclaimed there was an unwritten law that justified any means to resist it. Hardly had the sentences dried upon the statute books before one southern state after another raised the cry against negro domination and proclaimed there was an unwritten law that justified any means to resist it. Whenever a burning is advertised to take place, the railroads run excursions, photographs are taken, and the same jubilee is indulged in that characterized the public hangings of one hundred years ago. "Ida B. Lynch Law in America Political Culture Race and Equality Social Reform by Ida B. Wells-Barnett January, 1900 Edited and introduced by David Tucker Version One Version two Version three Cite Part of these Core Document Collections Slavery and Its Consequences View Study Questions How does Wells explain the occurrence of lynching? The American Birthright and the Philippine Pottage. Southern Horrors: Lynch Law in All Its Phases by Ida B. Wells-Barnett - Free Ebook Project Gutenberg 70,082 free ebooks 4 by Ida B. Wells-Barnett Southern Horrors: Lynch Law in All Its Phases by Ida B. Wells-Barnett Download This eBook Similar Books Readers also downloaded In African American Writers In Crime Nonfiction Bibliographic Record But the negro resents and utterly repudiates the effort to blacken his good name by asserting that assaults upon women are peculiar to his race. When you visit the site, Dotdash Meredith and its partners may store or retrieve information on your browser, mostly in the form of cookies. Lynching remains one of the most disturbing and least understood atrocities in American history . 4) Double standard of criminal law. Our watchword has been the land of the free and the home of the brave. Brave men do not gather by thousands to torture and murder a single individual, so gagged and bound he cannot make even feeble resistance or defense. There is, however, this difference: in those old days the multitude that stood by was permitted only to guy or jeer. "African American Perspectives" gives a panoramic and eclectic review of African American history and culture and is primarily comprised of two collections in the Rare Book and Special Collections Division: the African American Pamphlet Collection and the Daniel A.P. A few months ago the conscience of this country was shocked because, after a two-weeks trial, a French judicial tribunal pronounced Captain Dreyfus guilty. It is not the creature of an hour, the sudden outburst of uncontrolled fury, or the unspeakable brutality of an insane mob. No police try to stop the mob as a noose is thrown over a tree limb. This pamphlet was authored by Ida B. Wells-Barnett and widely circulated in the North. . For the next four decades she would devote her life, often at great personal risk, to campaigning against lynching. It next appeared in the South, where centuries of Anglo-Saxon civilization had made effective all the safeguards of court procedure. Two months earlier, her friend . This is the work of the unwritten law about which so much is said, and in whose behest butchery is made a pastime and national savagery condoned. 'without . Source: The Arena 23 (January 1900): 15-24. This condition of affairs were brutal enough and horrible enough if it were true that lynchings occurred only because of the commission of crimes against womenas is constantly declared by ministers, editors, lawyers, teachers, statesmen, and even by women themselves. 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