Ida B. Wells and Her Campaign to Stop Lynching
Ida B. Wells fearlessly crusaded to stop lynching in the South by researching and reporting lynchings in detail and by comparing coverage from black and white sources.
DOCUMENT 1
Ida B. Wells, Editorial Protesting the Lynching of Friends in Memphis, 1892
The lynching in 1892 of three friends who ran a grocery store outside of Memphis touched Wells deeply. She wrote an outraged editorial in the Free Press. Later she would repeat the details in her first pamphlet, Southern Horrors: Lynch Law in All Its Phases (1892).
On March 9, 1892, there were lynched in this same city three of the best specimens of young since-
When Barrett came he led a posse of officers, twelve in number, who afterward claimed to be hunting a man for whom they had a warrant. That twelve men in citizen’s clothes should think it necessary to go in the night to hunt one man who had never before been arrested, or made any record as a criminal has never been explained. When they entered the back door the young men thought the threatened attack was on, and fired into them. Three of the officers were wounded, and when the defending party found it was officers of the law upon whom they had fired, they ceased and got away.
Thirty-
What lesson? The lesson of subordination. “Kill the leaders and it will cow the Negro who dares to shoot a white man, even in self-
Source: Southern Horrors and Other Writings, edited by Jacqueline Jones Royster (Boston: Bedford/St. Martin's, 1997), 64–
DOCUMENT 2
Ida B. Wells, On Lack of Justice and Due Process for Accused Blacks, 1894
In her 1894 pamphlet The Red Record, Wells insisted that lynching assumed all black men were guilty, thus denying them the constitutional right to defend themselves in front of a judge and jury.
In lynching, opportunity is not given the Negro to defend himself against the unsupported accusations of white men and women. The word of the accuser is held to be true and the excited blood-
Source: Royster, Southern Horrors, 153.
DOCUMENT 3
Ida B. Wells, On Mob Rule in New Orleans, 1900
In her last pamphlet, Mob Rule in New Orleans, Wells describes the riot that occurred when a black man, Robert Charles, attacked by a police officer with a billy club, retaliated. This led to a duel that then brought on further violence.
During the entire time the mob held the city in its hands and went about holding up street cars and searching them, taking from them colored men to assault, shoot and kill, chasing colored men upon the public square, through alleys and into houses of anybody who would take them in, breaking into the homes of defenseless colored men and women and beating aged and decrepit men and women to death, the police and the legally-
Source: Royster, Southern Horrors, 181–
Questions for Analysis
Analyze the Evidence: In her campaign to end lynching, how does Wells seek to generate sympathy for the victims and to build an outraged antilynching coalition that will end the practice?
Recognize Viewpoints: How did the white people involved in lynching defend their actions?
Consider the Context: In addition to lynching, what else did white southerners do to keep African Americans in subordinate positions?