Ida B Wells Research Paper

Ida Wells-Barnett, writer of Lynch Law in America, offers an eye-opening article that reflects back on the negative experiences the black community suffered just because of their racial background. Wells-Barnett first starts by describing that there is an “unwritten law” that justifies every action against blacks because it proclaimed that for certain crimes no white person should be compelled to charge an assault under oath. This unwritten law, according to her, was advocated by “red-shirt” groups whose purpose, initially, was to “intimidate, suppress, and nullify the negro’s right to vote” (71). Then, she describes that in order to accomplish the main purpose, it was necessary to “beat, exile, and kill negros” (71). Therefore, the lynchings began in the South; and, on average, two hundred women and men were put to death annually. These lynchings were extremely publicized; the lynching mobs cut off extremities.

Ida B. Wells begins her writing of Southern Horrors announcing the lynching of eight negroes throughout the South in a month. These eight men were accused of killing, raping, and assaulting white citizens. All of the men captured were shot, hanged, or burned alive without being convicted of the alleged crimes in a court. If a white male was accused of committing burglary, murder, or rape, he would be convicted in court of law (if proven guilty) and sentenced for how severe the crime was. The white male may be let out of prison early,

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

Ida B. Wells (1862-1931) was a newspaper editor and journalist who went on to lead the American anti-lynching crusade. Working closely with both African-American community leaders and American suffragists, Wells worked to raise gender issues within the "Race Question" and race issues within the "Woman Question." Wells was born the daughter of slaves in Holly Springs, Mississippi, on July 16, 1862. During Reconstruction, she was educated at a Missouri Freedman's School, Rust University, and began teaching school at the age of fourteen. In 1884, she moved to Memphis, Tennessee, where she continued to teach while attending Fisk University during summer sessions. In Tennessee, especially, she was appalled at

In her speech, Ida B. Wells appeals to emotion and logic by using statistics and real-life stories of lynchings. She also counters the apologists’ defense of lynching by using strong language and statistics to disprove the validity of their claims. Finally, Wells offers a solution on how to end lynching and ensures that crimes will still be punished, even if lynching subsides. Despite the criticism of Wells and many other authors and activists, lynching persisted in the United States for a substantial period of time. Lynchings were so frequent in Southern states that Montgomery, Alabama, has plans to build a lynching memorial to recognize the mistreatment of black citizens and memorialize the victims. However, lynchings then were not the public disgrace they are now considered, and the unjust treatment of black citizens continued even after the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Activists like Wells have continued to identify racism when they see it in hopes to create a more equal society, but many would argue that an equal society still has not been

First, ask yourself how would you feel after hearing the news that one of your family members had been lynched? Throughout the chapters 1-8, we can experience and observe the disheartening history of violence and lies. It is additionally an irritating depiction of a partitioned country on the very edge of the social equality development and an eerie contemplation on race, history, and the battle for truth. Throughout history, the conditions of the lynching, how it affected the legislators of the day, quickened the social equality development and keeps on shadowing the Georgia people group where these homicides occurred. During the 1900s until 19600s various African-Americans experienced various harsh conditions of violence, never being granted the right to vote and being segregated from whites based on their race and skin-color from their white masters. In general racism between whites and blacks can be seen throughout the globe during the era of slavery

2. One of the texts most focused on educating readers about race and the challenges it presents to American culture is Ida B. Wells’ “Lynch Law in All its Phases.” As discussed in previous reading responses, Wells’ speech is made up primarily of evidence due to the limitations placed on women of colors’ speech but even more so due to her “deep-seated conviction that the country at large does not know the extent to which lynch law prevails in parts of the Republic” (189). In this way, Wells endeavours to educate the US both about lynching and about the repercussions of allowing lynch law to prevail. That is, Wells forces audiences to acknowledge the fact that lynching, and thus white supremacy and racism, actively threaten the moral pillars that the United States is built on.

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

She became a leading community activist through a sequence of events. In 1884 Ida was riding a train in a first class car, when she was asked to move to the smoking car. When she refused, two conductors tried to physically move her. She instead got off the train and filed a discrimination lawsuit. The lawsuit was initially won, but the Tennessee Supreme Court overturned the verdict. After the train incident, in 1889, Ida went to The Free Speech paper; this is where her most promising worked developed. In 1892, three of her friends were brutally killed during a lynching. This one particular event opened the eyes of Wells and prompted her to write some of her most controversial works yet. However this type of writing got the Free Speech office ransacked and destroyed. The other owner of the Free Speech barely escaped with his life, but he carried the message that if Ida were to show her face ever again in Tennessee she would be killed. Now with all this ammunition based on personal experience, even as an African American woman, she had gained credibility to be able to speak with

During the nineteenth century, lynching was brought to America by British Isles and after the Civil War white Americans lynching African American increased. Causing and bringing fear into their world. In the Southern United States, lynching became a method used by the whites to terrorize the Blacks and to remain in control with white supremacy. The hatred and fear that was installed into the white people’s head had caused them to turn to the lynch law. The term lynching means to be put to death by hanging by a mob action without legal sanction. So many white people were supportive of lynching because it was a sign of power that the white people had. “Lynching of the black people was used frequently by white people, their is no specific detail of how many times they had done it, but lynching of black people has lasted from 1882 to 1968. Lynching also is in fact a inhuman combination of racism and sadism which was used to support the south’s caste system,’’(Gandhi).

Another way that white southerners were able to rolled back many of the rights held by African Americans is by lynching. Lynch is a mob of people killed, especially by hanging, for an alleged offense with or without a legal trial. The primary source, ““Lynch Law in America” the author Ida B. Wells organized a national fight against lynching in the early twentieth century. Born a slave, Wells became a teacher and civil rights leader in Memphis, Tennessee. When a white mob lynched three of her friends, she helped organize a black boycott of white-owned businesses and wrote harsh editorials in her own newspaper. According to Wells, lynching “ It represents the cool, calculating deliberation of intelligent people who openly avow that there is

Ida B. Wells-Barnett dedicated her life to social justice and equality. She devoted her tremendous energies to building the foundations of African-American progress in business, politics, and law. Wells-Barnett was a key participant in the formation of the National Association of Colored Women as well as the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP). She spoke eloquently in support of Marcus Garvey and the Universal Negro Improvement Association. The legacies of these organizations have been tremendous and her contribution to each was timely and indespensible. But no cause challenged the courage and integrity of Ida B. Wells-Barnett as much as her battle against mob violence and the terror of lynching at the end of