The horrendous practice of lynching had become widespread in the South in the decades following the Civil War. No American travels abroad without blushing for shame for his country on this subject. 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. 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. Wells, a journalist and social critic who had been born a slave in 1862, published "Southern Horrors: The Lynch Law in. 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. 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. She refused and was ejected from the train. These advocates of the unwritten law boldly avowed their purpose to intimidate, suppress, and nullify the negros right to vote. Murray Collection with a date range of 1822 through 1909. and more. 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. Neither do brave men or women stand by and see such things done without compunction of conscience, nor read of them without protest. 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. The report noted that Wells had been welcomed by a local chapter of the Anti-Lynching Society, and a letter from Frederick Douglass, regretting that he couldn't attend, had been read. Wells, "Speech on Lynch Law in America, Given by Ida B. But the negro resents and utterly repudiates the efforts to blacken his good name by asserting that assaults upon women are peculiar to his race. Wells moved from Memphis to Brooklyn. The entire number is divided among the following states. Very scant notice is taken of the matter when this is the condition of affairs. Ida B. Wells-Barnett, born enslaved in Mississippi, was a pioneering activist and journalist. under oath, without trial by jury, without opportunity to make defense, and without right of appeal. Wells in Chicago, Illinois, January, 1900. 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. "Ida B. 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. All the negro asks is justicea fair and impartial trial in the courts of the country. Paid Italy for massacre of Italian prisoners atNew Orleans 24,330.90 It was enough to fight the enemies from without; woe to the foe within! Wells' uses many strategies and techniques to make her arguments as convincing as possible throughout her works. Wells, notebook in hand, runs to the leader of the mob and questions the reasoning for this man's execution. 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. The text of Ida B. Wells' "Lynch Law in All its Phases" an address given at Tremont Temple in the Boston Monday Lectureship on February . One of the most outspoken and tireless leaders against lynch law was Ida B. Wells-Barnett. 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. Wells reports on the rising violence of lynchings in the United States. If a few barns were burned some colored man was killed to stop it. What becomes a crime deserving capital punishment when the tables are turned is a matter of small moment when the negro woman is the accusing party. It asserted its sway in defiance of law and in favor of anarchy. 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. Seventh Annual Message to Congress (1907). Ida B. Wells-Barnett From "Lynch Law in America." Born a slave in Mississippi in 1862 a few months before the Emancipation Proclamation, Wells began writing for Memphis newspapers in her twenties. . . 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. If he showed a spirit of courageous manhood he was hanged for his pains, and the killing was justified by the declaration that he was a saucy nigger. Colored women have been murdered because they refused to tell the mobs where relatives could be found for lynching bees. Boys of fourteen years have been lynched by white representatives of American civilization. . . In her lifetime, she battled sexism, racism, and violence. His fourteen-year-old daughter and sixteen-year-old son were hanged and their bodies filled with bullets ; then the father was also lynched. Source: Ida B. Wells-Barnett, Lynch Law in America, The Arena 23 (January 1900), 15-24. (1900). Our Core Document Collection allows students to read history in the words of those who made it. 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 world looks on and says it is well. Wells became deeply interested in the lynching problem after three Black businessmen she knew were killed by a white mob outside Memphis, Tennessee, in 1892. McNamara, Robert. 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 In the case of the boy and girl above referred to, their father, named Hastings, was accused of the murder of a white man. Quite a number of the one-third alleged cases of assault that have been personally investigated by the writer have shown that there was no foundation in fact for the charges; yet the claim is not made that there were no real culprits among them. . 1900. . Ida B. Wells-Barnett's "Lynch Law in America" remains a compelling account of white violence as both savage and systemic, and of the US as irredeemable. Address at the National Negro Conference. If caught he was promptly tried, and if found guilty was hanged to the tree under which the court convened. If the leaders of the mob are so minded, coal-oil is poured over the body and the victim is then roasted to death. . OUR countrys national crime is lynching. 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 justified any means to resist it. Wells-Barnett, Ida B., 1862-1931. 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. Very scant notice is taken of the matter when this is the condition of affairs. Her groundbreaking work, which included collecting statistics in a practice that today is called "data journalism," established that the lawless killing of Black people was a systematic practice, especially in the South in the era following Reconstruction. Civil Rights and Conflict in the United States: Selected Speeches (Lit2Go Edition). Wells became a voice for African American justice at the turn of the 20th century. Biography of Ida B. Wells-Barnett, Journalist Who Fought Racism. 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. African American journalist Ida B. Wells dedicated to exposing lynching. She was, of course, attacked for that at home. The Tariff History of the United States (Part I), The Tariff History of the United States (Part II). TeachingAmericanHistory.org is a project of the Ashbrook Center at Ashland University, 401 College Avenue, Ashland, Ohio 44805 PHONE (419) 289-5411 TOLL FREE (877) 289-5411 EMAIL [emailprotected], State of the Union Address Part III (1911). Very scant notice is taken of the matter when this is the condition of affairs. There is however, this difference: in those old days the multitude that stood by was permitted only to guy or jeer. 'without . 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. Our nation has been active and outspoken in its endeavors to right the wrongs of the Armenian Christian, the Russian Jew, the Irish Home Ruler, the native women of India, the Siberian exile, and the Cuban patriot. "Of the Sons of Master and Man," from The Souls of "Of the Faith of the Fathers," from The Souls of B "Of the Sorrow Songs," from The Souls of Black Fol "The Afterthought," from The Souls of Black Folk. Wells Additional Information Year Published: 1900 Language: English Country of Origin: United States of America Source: Wells, I. Wells was already out of town when she realized that an editorial she'd written had caused a riot. Ida B. Wells-Barnett was an American investigative journalist, educator, and activist in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The campaign against lynching began in earnest in 1892 when Ida B. Lynching remains one of the most disturbing and least understood atrocities in American history . Today, we should take time to pause . Wells, I. When the court adjourned, the prisoner was dead. She utilized her journalistic capacity and position as author to spread her message of dissention against lynching and the unfair prosecution and deaths of African Americans. Heeding warnings that if she ever returned to Memphis, she would be killed, Wells moved to Chicago. According to Wells figures, 66% percent of the victims were African Americans, 34% were white or of some other race. 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 justified any means to resist it. . 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. 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. The cover page for Southern Horrors: Lynch Law In All Its Phases (1892), the first pamphlet by Ida B. But this question affects the entire American nation, and from several points of view: First, on the ground of consistency. 2 Wells-Barnett sought a federal anti-lynching law that would In 1892, Wells had left Memphis to attend a conference in . Of this number 160 were of Negro descent. And in June 2018 the Chicago city government voted to honor Wells by naming a street for her. This is the work of the unwritten law about which so much is said, and in whose behest butchery is made a pastime and national savagery condoned. Wells, an anti-lynching activist in the United States, was born the eldest of eight children to slave parents. 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. The campaign Ida B. Ida B. Wells-Barnett, born enslaved in Mississippi, was a pioneering activist and journalist. Wells starts her inspiring movement with writing the pamphlet, Lynch Law in Georgia. Wells was a destroyer of narratives and would not hesitate to decimate our modern-day ones. A Negro woman, Lou Stevens, was hanged from a railway bridge in Hollendale, Mississippi, in 1892. 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 Speech at the Unveiling of the Robert Gould Shaw "Of Booker T. Washington and Others," from The Sou "The Author and Signers of the Declaration", State of the Union Address Part II (1912), State of the Union Address Part III (1912), Chapter 19: The Progressive Era: Eugenics. . Although lynchings have steadily increased in number and barbarity during the last twenty years, there has been no single effort put forth by the many moral and philanthropic forces of the country to put a stop to this wholesale slaughter. 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. Quite a number of the one-third alleged cases of assault that have been personally investigated by the writer have shown that there was no foundation in fact for the charges; yet the claim is not made that there were no real culprits among them. In Paris the officers of the law delivered the prisoner to the mob. Instead of lynchings being caused by assaults upon women, the statistics show that not one-third of the victims of lynchings are even charged with such crimes. What becomes a crime deserving capital punishment when the tables are turned is a matter of small moment when the negro woman is the accusing party. But this alleged reason adds to the deliberate injustice of the mobs work. DOUGLASS'S LETTER Dear Miss Wells: 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. no matter'. Ida B. Wells-Barnett was a teacher, activist, and journalist who worked tirelessly from the late 1890s to document and fight against lynching throughout the United States. Wells (18621931) was raised by parents who were leaders in the black community during Reconstruction. She refused and was forcibly removed from the train. This is the work of the unwritten law about which so much is said, and in whose behest butchery is made a pastime and national savagery condoned. Ida B. Wells-Barnett published "Lynch Law in Georgia" o n June 20, 1899, to raise public awareness about white racism and violence in the South, particularly with the act of lynching. 2) vivid language for white hypocrisy. Judge Lynch was original in methods but exceedingly effective in procedure. They are as follows : In the case of the boy and girl above referred to, their father, named Hastings, was accused of the murder of a white man. Wells: "Lynch Law in America" (1900) Log in to see the full document and commentary. CONTEXT. Speech on Lynch Law in America, Given by Ida B. Ida B. Wells was an African American journalist, abolitionist and feminist who led an anti-lynching crusade in the United States in the 1890s. . 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. 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