B Wells Red Record Summary

In the words of Miss Ida B. Wells: The student of American sociology will find the year of 1894 marked by a pronounced awakening of the public conscience to a system of anarchy and outlawry which had grown during a series of ten years to be so common, that scenes of unusual brutality failed to have any visible effect upon the humane sentiments of the people of our land. She is depicting a period of time in American history stained with the blood of hundreds of free African American men, women and children. These people were unjustly slaughtered through the practice of lynching within the South. Wells was an investigative journalist and was involved in exploring, reporting, publishing literature on, and eventually campaigning against the

DuBois and Ida B. Wells who both strongly believed in challenging inequality and pushing for African-American civil rights. Foner explains that in W.E.B. DuBois’s book The Souls of Black Folk, DuBois issued a clarion call for blacks dissatisfied with the accommodationist policies of Booker T. Washington to press for equal rights (Foner 595). He believed that educated blacks must use their education and training to challenge inequality. Another influential voice at the time was Ida B. Wells. Wells was a controversial newspaper editor. She once wrote an essay condemning the lynching of three black men in Memphis which consequently led a mob to destroy her newspaper, the Memphis Free Press. She later became a dominant voice and the nation’s leading antilynching crusader (Foner 523). In her brief pamphlet written in 1892 titled Southern Lynching Law in All Its Phases, Wells says that, “The men and women in the South who disapprove of lynching and remain silent on the perpetration of such outrages, are particeps, criminis, accomplices, accessories before and after the fact, equally guilty with the actual lawbreakers who would not persist if they did not know that neither the law nor militia would be employed against them” (Wells). Unlike Booker T. Washington, both DuBois and Wells encouraged African-Americans to not sit back and remain law-abiding but to act. Wells encourages black laborers to withdraw, that way capital will not

Wells-Barnett was an investigative journalist and was involved in researching, reporting, publishing pamphlets, and eventually campaigning against the historical tragedy known as lynching. She became aware of these atrocities occurring against African Americans at an alarming rate in the United States. Wells-Barnett had published a total of three pamphlets that had worked through the half-truths and outright lies to uncover the inhumane activity of lynching mob. In Mob Rule in New Orleans, Wells-Barnett stated, “Legal sanction was given to the mob or any man of the mob to kill Charles at sight by the Mayor of New Orleans, who publicly proclaimed a reward of two hundred and fifty dollars, not for the arrest of Charles, not at all, but the reward was offered for Charles’ body, “dead or alive.” (Wells-Barnett 842) This statement reflects the mindset of the majority of white Americans during this turbulent time. Consequently, Ida B. Wells-Barnett became not just a reporter of the facts, but a crusader for the cause of justice for

Ida B. Wells also bought an interest in the _New York Age_ and wrote two weekly columns entitled "Iola's Southern Field," and kept increasing her oral and written campaign against lynching mainly through lectures and editorials. Some of these works by Ida B. Wells include _Southern Horrors: Lynch Law in All Its Phases_; _A Red Record: Tabulated Statistics and Alleged Causes of Lynching in the United States_; and _Mob Rule in New Orleans_ (1900). In all of these works, Wells argues and contemplates the economic and political causes of racial oppression and injustices. In her writing she analyzes racist sexual tensions, and explains the relationship between terrorists and community leaders, and urges African-Americans to resist oppression through boycotts and emigration. Her

For example in the book “Leon's Story”, Leon says that when African American kids would be walking back from school the white bus would come by and all of African American kids would start running looking for a good place to hide. But if they could not hide and the bus driver stopped the bus it was not a good sign,that meant the white kids would get off of the bus and start throwing anything that they could throw at African American kids and calling them names. They did this because they were taught that African American or Negroes had no feeling and you could not hurt them. The older African American kids would be standing in front of the little kids protecting them. Another example of violence was that on leon's 15 birthday his parents were walking to get something when a car with a teenage boy driving headed straight for leons parents. Leons dad shoved his mother into the ditch, but sadley car plowed over Mr. Tillage then while he was trying to get up the car turned around and ran over him again, this time Mr. Tillage got stuck under the car they

Whites was stuck in their traditional Southern ways and wasn’t about to let blacks change that. When blacks tried to protest non-violently, the whites was ready to start a riot but the blacks were the ones arrested for “inciting a riot”. Some blacks even lost hope because they felt they were fighting a losing battle. But the fight continued and some blacks such as C. K. Steele wasn’t going to stop fighting until total integration was achieved.

In “The Case Stated” (1895), Ida B. Wells asserts that failure to speak up against racial injustices contributed to the lynch law phenomenon and the loss of many African American lives. Wells supports her claims by giving examples of injustices served to African Americans such as slavery, a constitution that fails to promote equity, and false accusations and lynching’s that resulted in the deaths of thousands of African Americans. In order to convey her passion and desire for change, Ida B. Wells pleads to all Americans, both black and white, to fight for change and stop “avow(ing) anarchy, condon(ing) murder, and defy(ing) the contempt of civilization” (74). Ida B. Wells is not asking for pity for African Americans, she is asking for all

The blacks couldn't do lots of things whites could politically and socially. Some political reasons is that they weren't allowed to vote or have any say in government Or community politics.if they tried to stand up for themselves they would either be put in jail or beat up by

Because white people want black people to return to slavery or at least not attain the same rights as them, they are looking to create wrong allegations and treat black people badly.

During these years of radical reconstruction, the African Americans were going through some very tough times. The laws that were put on them were harsh and unreasonable. All they wanted to do was becomes socially and economically apart of the United States. Groups like the KKK were unfair towards the blacks and made their lives miserable by holding rallies and killing them. As a result of reconstruction, the blacks were not given social or economic equality because of laws like the black codes and Jim Crow laws, and the rebellious whites in the south. These African Americans struggled just to support themselves, but whites eventually accepted them at the end of the

Emancipated blacks, after the Civil War, continued to live in fear of lynching, a practice of vigilantism that was often based on false accusations. Lynching was not only a way for southern white men to exert racist “justice,” it was also a means of keeping women, white and black, under the control of a violent white male ideology. In response to the injustices of lynching, the anti-lynching movement was established—a campaign in which women played a key role. Ida B. Wells, a black teacher and journalist was at the forefront and early development of this movement. In 1892 Wells was one of the first news reporters to bring the truths of lynching to proper media attention. Her first articles

Blacks were treated with tremendous cruelty in many different ways. Black lives before the civil rights movement were treated cruel and unfair. African Americans did not have the same opportunities that they have today. Before the movement they could not get an education, a good job, or a place to live. These men and women who worked for white landowners were pretty much treated like slaves. They were barely paid anything for the work that they did. Many blacks lived in the streets and did not even have a place to get out of the weather. Due to these factors many blacks lived in poverty and were treated very cruel. A staff Writer wrote, “For black Americans, the pre-Civil Rights era was a time of danger and turmoil, as they set out to claim

They thought that if they were to treat the Blacks as equals then this would encourage interracial relationships. They used violence to keep the Blacks in place and at the bottom of the racial chain. This caused several Jim Crow Laws to be set forth such as a black man could not shake hands with a white man because it meant that they were socially equal. A black man could not also extend a hand or other body part towards a White woman for the fear of being accused of raping her. Blacks and Whites were forbidden from eating together and if they did the

The first action Ida B Wells took to stop lynching was in 1892. She composed a pamphlet exposing the fear and brutal treatment of mob violence ("Biography for kids: Ida B. Wells”). Meanwhile Wells led an anti-lynching crusade in the late 1890s for the United States for thoses who did not get a fair trial for an alleged offence ("Biography”). By Wells being so devoted and interactive with the movement it became stronger because she dedicated an excessive amount of time and effort proving that the lynching of men, women, children were considered murders ("Woman Journalist Crusades Against Lynching”). Currently, because Wells stepped up and chose to be brave, lynching is banned today. Not only did Ida B Wells expose lynching as this country’s national crime, her efforts directly affected us

The main excuse given for the mob lynchings of the Negroes was rape. Any blacks found to be involved intimately with a white woman were immediately accused of rape. Ida writes, “In numerous instances where colored men have been lynched on the charge of rape, it was positively known at the time of lynching, and indisputably proven after the victims’ death, that the relationship sustained between the man and the woman was voluntary and clandestine, and that in no court of law could even the charge of assault have been successfully maintained.” However, she also writes, “The Southern white man says it is impossible for a voluntary alliance to exist between a white woman and a colored man, and therefore, the act of an alliance is a proof of force.” Even though they know that the acts had been completely consensual, the white males continued this butchery of the blacks. Anything that could be thought up, even if it lacked truth or evidence, was used as excuses for these continued forms of slavery.