Rebecca Feimster's Southern Horrors And Ida B. Wells

Once the Civil War had ended, many rejoiced and thought that African Americans would be free to live out normal lives, but then came the increase of lynching. After the war, the Southern economy was in ruins, and lynching had allowed white southerners to express their hatred and discontent towards the situation and African Americans were the vulnerable targets for their pent-up anger (Notes). In Southern Horrors, Feimster introduces Rebecca Felton, who was a wealthy slave owner, and Ida B. Wells, a slave born women, and how each woman viewed this idea of lynching drastically diverse from each other due to their upbringings.
Rebecca Latimer Felton was born into a wealthy slave holder family, and was taught how to handle slaves and how to be
She called out these men who went against the supposed principles of white supremacy and their own wives by raping and fathering illegitimate mixed children. Thus, the need for protecting black women, alleged convicts or not, was an absolute necessary if whites didn’t want to worry about an attack on white women from the black men in retaliation. Then in her 1897 “Woman on the Farm” speech she had boldly addressed that white men’s corrupt politics was the key contributor as to why poor white women are being raped by black men (Feimster, 2011, p.126). When white men are more concerned about profit and power, they’d tend to overlook the need of arming women with protection in the form of education and laws, which left them sexually vulnerable. She went on to comment that if the men couldn’t clean up their politics, then they would have to continue to lynch “a thousand times a week of necessary” (Feimster, 2011, p.127). Unfortunately, the media had twisted her words during the speech that make it appear that she was encouraging the mass lynching’s and to increase the amount per week, instead of criticizing white men for being the problem of rape and