Ida Wells-Barnett (1862-1931)

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• ~ 1 month ago

  Southern Horrors: Lynch Law in All Its Phases By Ida B. Wells-Barnett (1892, 1893, 1894)

  

  Uploaded by Brian C

  The greater part of what is contained in these pages was published in the New York Age June 25, 1892, in explanation of the editorial which the Memphis whites considered sufficiently infamous to justify the destruction of my paper, the Free Speech.

  Since the appearance of that statement, requests have come from all parts of the country that "Exiled" (the name under which it then appeared) be issued in pamphlet form. Some donations were made, but not enough for that purpose. The noble effort of the ladies of New York and Brooklyn Oct. 5 have enabled me to comply with this request and give the world a true, unvarnished account of the causes of lynch law in the South.

  This statement is not a shield for the despoiler of virtue, nor altogether a defense for the poor blind Afro-American Sampsons who suffer themselves to be betrayed by white Delilahs. It is a contribution to truth, an array of facts, the perusal of which it is hoped will stimulate this great American Republic to demand that justice be done though the heavens fall.

  It is with no pleasure I have dipped my hands in the corruption here exposed. Somebody must show that the Afro-American race is more sinned against than sinning, and it seems to have fallen upon me to do so. The awful death-roll that Judge Lynch is calling every week is appalling, not only because of the lives it takes, the rank cruelty and outrage to the victims, but because of the prejudice it fosters and the stain it places against the good name of a weak race.

  The Afro-American is not a bestial race. If this work can contribute in any way toward proving this, and at the same time arouse the conscience of the American people to a demand for justice to every citizen, and punishment by law for the lawless, I shall feel I have done my race a service. Other considerations are of minor importance.

  IDA B. WELLS
  New York City, Oct. 26, 1892

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• ~ 1 month ago

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  The Red Record (1895) by Ida B. Wells-Barnett

  

  Uploaded by Brian C

  HON. FREDERICK DOUGLASS'S LETTER

  DEAR MISS WELLS:

  Let me give you thanks for your faithful paper on the lynch abomination now generally practiced against colored people in the South. There has been no word equal to it in convincing power. I have spoken, but my word is feeble in comparison. You give us what you know and testify from actual knowledge. You have dealt with the facts with cool, painstaking fidelity, and left those naked and uncontradicted facts to speak for themselves.

  Brave woman! you have done your people and mine a service which can neither be weighed nor measured. If the American conscience were only half alive, if the American church and clergy were only half Christianized, if American moral sensibility were not hardened by persistent infliction of outrage and crime against colored people, a scream of horror, shame, and indignation would rise to Heaven wherever your pamphlet shall be read.

  But alas! even crime has power to reproduce itself and create conditions favorable to its own existence. It sometimes seems we are deserted by earth and Heaven—yet we must still think, speak and work, and trust in the power of a merciful God for final deliverance.

  Very truly and gratefully yours,
  FREDERICK DOUGLASS
  Cedar Hill, Anacostia, D.C.

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• ~ 1 month ago

  (1900) Ida B. Wells, “Lynch Law in America”

  

  Uploaded by Brian C

  Beginning in 1892 with the destruction of her newspaper, the Memphis Free Speech, Ida B. Wells for the next forty years was the most prominent opponent of lynching in the United States. What follows is a speech she made to a Chicago audience on the subject in January 1900.

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• ~ 1 month ago

  (1909) Ida B. Wells, “Lynching, Our National Crime”

  

  Uploaded by Brian C

  By 1909 Ida B. Wells was the most prominent anti-lynching campaigner in the United States. From the early 1890s she labored mostly alone in her effort to raise the nation’s awareness and indignation about these usually unpunished murders.  In 1909, however, she gained a powerful ally in the newly formed National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP).  The following speech was delivered by Wells at the National Negro Conference, the forerunner to the NAACP, in New York City on May 31-June 1, 1909. 

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