It is not the creature of an hour, the sudden outburst of uncontrolled fury, or the unspeakable brutality of an insane mob. . Of five hundred newspaper clippings of that horrible affair, nine-tenths of them assumed Hoses guiltsimply because his murderers said so, and because it is the fashion to believe the negro peculiarly addicted to this species of crime. At Newman, Ga., of the present year, the mob tried every conceivable torture to compel the victim to cry out and confess, before they set fire to the faggots that burned him. In 1909, however, she gained a powerful ally in the newly formed National Association for the Advancement . LYNCH LAW BY IDA B. 5Maryland.. 1 Wyoming. 9Mississippi.. 16 Arizona Ter 3Missouri.. 6 Oklahoma 2 ters were from Ida B. Wells-Barnettjournalist, author, public speaker, and civil rights activistwho received national and international attention for her efforts to expose, educate, and inform the public on the evils and truths of lynching. 1 An African-American woman of "striking courage and conviction," she received national recognition as the leader of the anti-lynching crusade. And in May 1892 the office of her newspaper, the Free Speech, was attacked by a white mob and burned. The cover page for A Red Record: Tabulated Statistics and Alleged Causes of Lynchings in the United States, 1892-1893-1894 by Ida B. 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. It is not the creature of an hour, the sudden outburst of uncontrolled fury, or the unspeakable brutality of an insane mob. All the negro asks is justicea fair and impartial trial in the courts of the country. 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] . She continued her work documenting lynchings. But the reign of the national law was short-lived and illusionary. The Educational and Industrial Emancipation of the A Governor Bitterly Opposes Negro Education. Speeches. A lynching is the public killing of an individual who has not received any due process. According to Wells figures, 66% percent of the victims were African Americans, 34% were white or of some other race. 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. Author Wells Barnett Ida B 1862 1931 LoC No 91898209 Title Lynch Law in Georgia Language English LoC Class E660 History America Late nineteenth century 1865 1900 Subject Hose Sam 1875 1899 Subject Strickland Elijah Subject Lynching Georgia Subject Af . The Modern City and the Municipal Franchise for Wo Equal Rights Amendment to the Federal Constitutio Better Baby Contest, Indiana State Fair, State of the Union Address Part IV (1911). Source: Ida B. Wells-Barnett, Lynch Law in America, The Arena 23 (January 1900), 15-24. . Of this number 160 were of Negro descent. She refused and was forcibly removed from the train. In many cases there has been open expression that the fate meted out to the victim was only what he deserved. No American travels abroad without blushing for shame for his country on this subject. 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 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. In fact, for all kinds of offensesand, for no offensesfrom murders to misdemeanors, men and women are put to death without judge or jury; so that, although the political excuse was no longer necessary, the wholesale murder of human beings went on just the same. Wells: "Lynch Law in America" (1900) Log in to see the full document and commentary. 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 justied any means to resist it. . The method then inaugurated was the outrages by the red-shirt bands of Louisiana, South Carolina, and other Southern States, which were succeeded by the Ku-Klux Klans. Address Accepting Democratic Presidential Nominati State of the Union Address Part II (1901), State of the Union Address Part II (1904), State of the Union Address Part II (1905), State of the Union Address Part II (1906), State of the Union Address Part II (1907), State of the Union Address Part II (1908), State of the Union Address Part II (1911), An Address to Congress on the Mexican Crisis. It represents the cool, . . Lawlessness permeated the nation, allowing for lynching. See also, Lisa D. Cook, Converging to a National Lynching Database: Recent Developments, (2011) which describes and analyzes different databases of lynching incidents. The first statute of this unwritten law was written in the blood of thousands of brave men who thought that a government that was good enough to create a citizenship was strong enough to protect it. There is, however, this difference: in those old days the multitude that stood by was permitted only to guy or jeer. In her lifetime, she battled sexism, racism, and violence. Available in hard copy and for download. Wells lived everything that second and third-wave feminists claim to crow about, but she did it while still embracing being a woman, marriage, and motherhood. The Chicago Tribune, which publishes annually lynching statistics, is authority for the following: In 1892, when lynching reached high-water mark, there were 241 persons lynched. These people knew nothing about Christianity and did not profess to follow its teachings; but such primary laws as they had they lived up to. Wells, "Speech on Lynch Law in America, Given by Ida B. Available in hard copy and for download. . It presents three salient facts: First: Lynching is color line murder. Who Were the Muckrakers in the Journalism Industry? 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. Wells Additional Information Year Published: 1900 Language: English Country of Origin: United States of America Source: Wells, I. Slavery and Its ConsequencesA New Core Document Collection, Speech in the Senate on the Disenfranchisement of African Americans, Check out our collection of primary source readers. 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. The pamphlet was reprinted in 1893 and 1894. . 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 moved from Memphis to Brooklyn. The world looks on and says it is well. Lit2Go Edition. 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 This confession, while humiliating in the extreme, was not satisfactory; and, while the United States cannot protect, she can pay. She was also active in the womens rights movement. . 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. Primary Source: Ida B. Wells-Barnett, "Lynch Law in America" (1900) Ida B. Wells-Barnett, born a slave in Mississippi, was a pioneering activist and journalist. The horrendous practice of lynching had become widespread in the South in the decades following the Civil War. Ida B. . Robert J. McNamara is a history expert and former magazine journalist. Wells was a pioneer in the fight for African American civil rights. It represents the cool, calculating deliberation of intelligent people who openly avow that there is an unwritten law that justifies them in putting human beings to death without complaint under oath, without trial by jury, without opportunity to make defense, and without right of appeal. Ida B. Ida B. For this reason they publish at every possible opportunity this excuse for lynching, hoping thereby not only to palliate their own crime but at the same time to prove the negro a moral monster and unworthy of the respect and sympathy of the civilized world. The negro has been too long associated with the white man not to have copied his vices as well as his virtues. Biography of Ida B. Wells-Barnett, Journalist Who Fought Racism. When you visit the site, Dotdash Meredith and its partners may store or retrieve information on your browser, mostly in the form of cookies. 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. . This cannot be until Americans of every section, of broadest patriotism and best and wisest citizenship, not only see the defect in our countrys armor but take the necessary steps to remedy it. When Ida was 16, her family faced a terrible tragedy when her parents and baby brother died of yellow fever. . In many other instances there has been a silence that says more forcibly than words can proclaim it that it is right and proper that a human being should be seized by a mob and burned to death upon the unsworn and the uncorroborated charge of his accuser. A new name was given to the killings and a new excuse was invented for so doing. (1900). Wells exposed the hypocrisy of lynching in the following excerpt, taken from The Reason Why the Colored American Is Not in the World's Columbian Exposition, a pamphlet published in 1893 for the Chicago World's Fair. Wells became a voice for African American justice at the turn of the 20th century. 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. Rhetoric. Wells in Chicago, Illinois, January, 1900 by Ida B. 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. Our countrys national crime is lynching. There is however, this difference: in those old days the multitude that stood by was permitted only to guy or jeer. The Bible at the Center of the Modern University. Very scant notice is taken of the matter when this is the condition of affairs. Wells argues against the lynching of African Americans of the time. Web. During the last ten years a new statute has been added to the unwritten law. This statute proclaims that for certain crimes or alleged crimes no negro shall be allowed a trial; that no white woman shall be compelled to charge an assault under oath or to submit any such charge to the investigation of a court of law. [2] Four of them were lynched in New York, Ohio, and Kansas ; the remainder were murdered in the South. Civil Rights and Conflict in the United States: Selected Speeches (Lit2Go Edition). The negro has suffered far more from the commission of this crime against the women of his race by white men than the white race has ever suffered through his crimes. https://www.thoughtco.com/ida-b-wells-basics-1773408 (accessed March 2, 2023). One of the most outspoken and tireless leaders against lynch law was Ida B. Wells-Barnett. Ida B. His savage, untutored mind suggested no better way than that of wreaking vengeance upon those who had wronged him. 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. Murray Collection with a date range of 1822 through 1909. What does its concentration in the South and the predominance of African American victims tell us? . Retrieved from https://www.thoughtco.com/ida-b-wells-basics-1773408. Wells View Writing Issues Filter Results Before Civils Rights Acts were put into place in the 60s, black Americans were subjugated by Jim Crow Laws, which are now paralleled by the absence of laws to protect LGBTQ individuals. In a sense, Wells practiced what today is often lauded as data journalism, as she scrupulously kept records and was able to document the large numbers of lynchings which were taking place in America. The entire number is divided among the following states. Two months earlier, her friend . In Paris the officers of the law delivered the prisoner to the mob. . In Ida B. Wells' works Southern Horrors: Lynch Law in All Its Phases and A Red Record, Ida B. In 1894 she returned to America and embarked on a speaking tour. To verify accuracy, check the appropriate style guide. At the time Ida B. Ida B. Wells-Barnett, born enslaved in Mississippi, was a pioneering activist and journalist. Wells, Ida B.. "Speech on Lynch Law in America, Given by Ida B. Letter to the Chairman of the Senate Committee on Lansings Memorandum of the Cabinet Meeting. The Modern City and the Municipal Franchise for Wo Equal Rights Amendment to the Federal Constitutio Better Baby Contest, Indiana State Fair, State of the Union Address Part IV (1911). In March 2018, as part of a project to highlight women who had been overlooked, the New York Times published a belated obituary of Ida B. The Educational and Industrial Emancipation of the A Governor Bitterly Opposes Negro Education. Wells-Barnett, Ida B, et al. The six remaining Wells children were orphaned, and Ida "suddenly found myself head of a . At Newman, Ga., of the present year, the mob tried every conceivable torture to compel the victim to cry out and confess, before they set fire to the faggots that burned him. Ida B. Wells-Barnett, The Red Record 11 likes Like "The miscegnation laws of the South only operate against the legitimate union of the races; they leave the white man free to seduce all the colored girls he can, but it is death to the colored man who yields to the force and advances of a similar attraction in white women. Ida B. Wells-Barnett's Arena article was groundbreaking in many ways. Thus lynch law held sway in the far West until civilization spread into the Territories and the orderly processes of law took its place. without', 'no matter . Five of this number were females. 2 Wells-Barnett sought a federal anti-lynching law that would Ida B. Wells-Barnett was a prominent journalist, activist, and researcher, in the late 19 th and early 20 th centuries. . Important Black Women in American History, 27 Black American Women Writers You Should Know, 6 Revealing Autobiographies by African American Thinkers, African-American History and Women Timeline (1930-1939), The African American Press Timeline: 1827 to 1895, African-American Men and Women of the Progressive Era, Robert Sengstacke Abbott: Publisher of "The Chicago Defender", The Most Important Inventions of the Industrial Revolution. United States Atrocities : Lynch Law. Second, on the ground of economy. Print friendly. Features such as a chronology, questions for consideration, a bibliography, and an index are also included to aid students' understanding of the historical context and significance of Ida B. Wells's work. With all the powers of government in control; with all laws made by white men, administered by white judges, jurors, prosecuting attorneys, and sheriffs; with every office of the executive department filled by white menno excuse can be offered for exchanging the orderly administration of justice for barbarous lynchings and unwritten laws. Our country should be placed speedily above the plane of confessing herself a failure at self-government. The world looks on and says it is well. Though her campaign against lynching did not stop the practice, her groundbreaking reporting and writing on the subject was a milestone in American journalism. In 1892 there were 241 persons lynched. If the leaders of the mob are so minded, coal-oil is poured over the body and the victim is then roasted to death. Wells would fight for justice and equality in the African American community. Journalist Ida B. 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. . Belated Honors. But that did not stop journalist Ida B. Wells died she had faded from public view somewhat, and major newspapers did not note her passing. A Texas newspaper called her an "adventuress," and the governor of Georgia even claimed that she was a stooge for international businessmen trying to get people to boycott the South and do business in the American West. Conversation-based seminars for collegial PD, one-day and multi-day seminars, graduate credit seminars (MA degree), online and in-person. Wells died on March 25, 1931. It is now no uncommon thing to read of lynchings north of Mason and Dixons line, and those most responsible for this fashion gleefully point to these instances and assert that the North is no better than the South. 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. 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. 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. They lived in Chicago and had four children. The Revolt of 1910 Against Speaker Joseph Cannon. [T]hey publish at every possible opportunity this excuse for lynching, hoping thereby not only to palliate their own crime but at the same time to prove the negro a moral monster and unworthy of the respect and sympathy of the civilized world. Ida B. . She was, of course, attacked for that at home. But this alleged reason adds to the deliberate injustice of the mobs work. 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. There has also been a movement to honor Wells with a statue in the Chicago neighborhood where she lived. Seventh Annual Message to Congress (1907). These executions were often carried out by lawless mobs, though police officers did participate, under the pretext of justice. Presents three salient facts: First: lynching is the condition of affairs of course, for... 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