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. You can find out more about our use, change your default settings, and withdraw your consent at any time with effect for the future by visiting Cookies Settings, which can also be found in the footer of the site. At one point a newspaper she owned was burned by a white mob. Wells, "Lynch Law in America", January 1900 2 Wells died she had faded from public view somewhat, and major newspapers did not note her passing. 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). Humiliating indeed, but altogether unanswerable, was the reply of the French press to our protest: Stop your lynchings at home before you send your protests abroad.. Thus lynch law held sway in the far West until civilization spread into the Territories and the orderly processes of law took its place. . Ida B. Wells-Barnett, born enslaved in Mississippi, was a pioneering activist and journalist. In many cases there has been open expression that the fate meted out to the victim was only what he deserved. Not only are two hundred men and women put to death annually, on the average, in this country by mobs, but these lives are taken with the greatest publicity. There is, however, this difference: in those old days the multitude that stood by was permitted only to guy or jeer. If a colored man resented the imposition of a white man and the two came to blows, the colored man had to die, either at the hands of the white man then and there or later at the hands of a mob that speedily gathered. Although the victims of lynchings were members of various ethnicities, after roughly 4 million enslaved African Americans were emancipated, they became the primary targets of white Southerners. IDA B. 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. If caught he was promptly tried, and if found guilty was hanged to the tree under which the court convened. It was enough to fight the enemies from without; woe to the foe within! In support of its plans the Ku-Klux Klans, the red-shirt and similar organizations proceeded to beat, exile, and kill negroes until the purpose of their organization was accomplished and the supremacy of the unwritten law was effected. Lynch Law in America Political Culture Race and Equality Social Reform by Ida B. Wells-Barnett January, 1900 Edited and introduced by David Tucker Version One Version two Version three Cite Part of these Core Document Collections Slavery and Its Consequences View Study Questions How does Wells explain the occurrence of lynching? The unwritten law first found excuse with the rough, rugged, and determined man who left the civilized centers of eastern States to seek for quick returns in the gold-fields of the far West. 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. Ida B. Wells-Barnett, ne Ida Bell Wells, (born July 16, 1862, Holly Springs, Mississippi, U.S.died March 25, 1931, Chicago, Illinois), American journalist who led an anti-lynching crusade in the United States in the 1890s. . DuBois on Black Progress (1895, 1903), Jane Addams, The Subjective Necessity for Social Settlements (1892), Eugene Debs, How I Became a Socialist (April, 1902), Walter Rauschenbusch, Christianity and the Social Crisis (1907), Alice Stone Blackwell, Answering Objections to Womens Suffrage (1917), Theodore Roosevelt on The New Nationalism (1910), Woodrow Wilson Requests War (April 2, 1917), Emma Goldman on Patriotism (July 9, 1917), W.E.B DuBois, Returning Soldiers (May, 1919), Lutiant Van Wert describes the 1918 Flu Pandemic (1918), Manuel Quezon calls for Filipino Independence (1919), Warren G. Harding and the Return to Normalcy (1920), Crystal Eastman, Now We Can Begin (1920), Marcus Garvey, Explanation of the Objects of the Universal Negro Improvement Association (1921), Hiram Evans on the The Klans Fight for Americanism (1926), Herbert Hoover, Principles and Ideals of the United States Government (1928), Ellen Welles Page, A Flappers Appeal to Parents (1922), Huey P. Long, Every Man a King and Share our Wealth (1934), Franklin Roosevelts Re-Nomination Acceptance Speech (1936), Second Inaugural Address of Franklin D. Roosevelt (1937), Lester Hunter, Id Rather Not Be on Relief (1938), Bertha McCall on Americas Moving People (1940), Dorothy West, Amateur Night in Harlem (1938), Charles A. Lindbergh, America First (1941), A Phillip Randolph and Franklin Roosevelt on Racial Discrimination in the Defense Industry (1941), Aiko Herzig-Yoshinaga on Japanese Internment (1942/1994), Harry Truman Announcing the Atomic Bombing of Hiroshima (1945), Declaration of Independence of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (1945), Dwight D. Eisenhower, Atoms for Peace (1953), Senator Margaret Chase Smiths Declaration of Conscience (1950), Lillian Hellman Refuses to Name Names (1952), Paul Robesons Appearance Before the House Un-American Activities Committee (1956), Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka (1954), Richard Nixon on the American Standard of Living (1959), John F. Kennedy on the Separation of Church and State (1960), Congressman Arthur L. Miller Gives the Putrid Facts About Homosexuality (1950), Rosa Parks on Life in Montgomery, Alabama (1956-1958), Barry Goldwater, Republican Nomination Acceptance Speech (1964), Lyndon Johnson on Voting Rights and the American Promise (1965), Lyndon Johnson, Howard University Commencement Address (1965), National Organization for Women, Statement of Purpose (1966), George M. Garcia, Vietnam Veteran, Oral Interview (1969/2012), Fannie Lou Hamer: Testimony at the Democratic National Convention 1964, Report of the National Advisory Commission on Civil Disorders (1968), Statement by John Kerry of Vietnam Veterans Against the War (1971), Barbara Jordan, 1976 Democratic National Convention Keynote Address (1976), Jimmy Carter, Crisis of Confidence (1979), Gloria Steinem on Equal Rights for Women (1970), First Inaugural Address of Ronald Reagan (1981), Jerry Falwell on the Homosexual Revolution (1981), Statements from The Parents Music Resource Center (1985), Phyllis Schlafly on Womens Responsibility for Sexual Harassment (1981), Jesse Jackson on the Rainbow Coalition (1984), Bill Clinton on Free Trade and Financial Deregulation (1993-2000), The 9/11 Commission Report, Reflecting On A Generational Challenge (2004), George W. Bush on the Post-9/11 World (2002), Pedro Lopez on His Mothers Deportation (2008/2015), Chelsea Manning Petitions for a Pardon (2013), Emily Doe (Chanel Miller), Victim Impact Statement (2015). It is not the creature of an hour, the sudden outburst of uncontrolled fury, or the unspeakable brutality of an insane mob. This has been done in Texarkana and Paris, Tex., in Bardswell, Ky., and in Newman, Ga. What does its concentration in the South and the predominance of African American victims tell us? Here's part of her speech, including the opening: "I am before the American people to day through no inclination of my own, but because of a deep seated conviction that the country at large does not . (1900). Wells in March 1892 when three young African American businessmen she knew in Memphis were abducted by a mob and murdered. Wells often confronted lynch mobs, where a swarm of angry men and women gather and begin beating a black man that was kidnapped from jail. 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. 3) Mass acceptance of lynching. In Paris the officers of the law delivered the prisoner to the mob. (University of Chicago Library) In 1892, journalist and editor Ida B. Paid Great Britain for outrages on James Bainand Frederick Dawson . 2,800.00. No police try to stop the mob as a noose is thrown over a tree limb. When Ida B. Our Core Document Collection allows students to read history in the words of those who made it. 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 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. 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. . No scoffer at our boasted American civilization could say anything more harsh of it than does the American white man himself who says he is unable to protect the honor of his women without resort to such brutal, inhuman, and degrading exhibitions as characterize lynching bees. The cannibals of the South Sea Islands roast human beings alive to satisfy hunger. Retrieved from https://www.thoughtco.com/ida-b-wells-basics-1773408. Speech on Lynch Law in America, Given by Ida B. The entire number is divided among the following States: Alabama 22 Montana. 4Arkansas.. 25 New York 1California 3 North Carolina 5Florida 11 North Dakota.. 1Georgia 17 Ohio. 3Idaho.. 8 South Carolina 5Illinois.. 1 Tennessee.. 28Kansas. 3 Texas 15Kentucky.. 9 Virginia 7Louisiana. 29 West Virginia. Robert J. McNamara is a history expert and former magazine journalist. Wells was born in Holly Springs, Mississippi in 1862, six months before the Emancipation Proclamation granted freedom to her enslaved parents. She continued her work there on behalf of African Americans. In Texarkana, the year before, men and boys amused themselves by cutting off strips of flesh and thrusting knives into their helpless victim. 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. And the world has accepted this theory without let or hindrance. It presents three salient facts: First: Lynching is color line murder. When Ida was young she was educated in a local school, though her education was interrupted when both her parents died in a yellow fever epidemic when she was 16. Her most famous pieces propelled Wells to the leadership of the anti-lynching crusade at the turn of the twentieth century. The New York Times reported on her speech: In 1895 Wells published a landmark book, A Red Record: Tabulated Statistics and Alleged Causes of Lynchings In the United States. If a few barns were burned some colored man was killed to stop it. . According to this count, 73% of lynchings occurred in the South. The American Birthright and the Philippine Pottage. . Wells went to heroic lengths in the late 1890s to document the horrifying practice of lynching Black people. 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. . There is however, this difference: in those old days the multitude that stood by was permitted only to guy or jeer. The Problem of Japan: A Japanese Liberal's View. Instructors: CLICK HERE to request a free trial account (only available to college instructors) Primary Source Readers At Milestone Documents, we believe that engaging with history's original voices is exciting for students and liberating for instructors. In Paris the officers of the law delivered the prisoner to the mob. 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 died on March 25, 1931. 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