themselves and for others. One woman in particular‚ Ida B. Wells‚ advocated for African Americans throughout her life and continued
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passed from one hand to the other among a raucous crowd of white people‚ which included women and children. The practice of lynching began long before the Civil War‚ but during the years of Reconstruction‚ lynching was one way in which whites terrorized blacks in an attempt to maintain the status quo in terms of economic‚ social‚ and political oppression. Many blacks in the American South lived their daily existence with the threat of being lynched at the whim of Southern white men. Under the pretext
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Ida B. Wells Anti-Lynching Campaign Ida B. Wells was a well-established journalist who lived during the late 19th century and the early 20th century. She was born in Mississippi in 1862 to James and Elizabeth Wells‚ who were enslaved until the Emancipation Proclamation. When Ida was 16‚ both of her parents and her youngest brother were killed by a yellow fever epidemic. Ida took the responsibility of looking after and providing for her five remaining siblings. Wells moved to Memphis with
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All the while‚ writers from different times compiled compositions of their own. In determinations to expose the truth‚ “A Red Record”‚ by Ida B. Wells offered facts and statistics about the repulsion of lynching in America. Some years later‚ after Ida B. Wells‚ in 1937‚ Abel Meerool’s poem‚ “Strange Fruit”‚ later recorded as a song by Billie Holiday in 1939‚ focused on the purpose and resolution of racial violence. Following the Jim Crow eras and
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The excuses whites used during Reconstruction to torture and murder newly freed African Americans were as false as they were numerous. In Southern Horrors and Other Writings‚ Wells relates many of these. Excuses ranging from sassing whites to rape to murder prove that "colored men and women [were] lynched for almost any offense" (Wells 78). According to Wells‚ the three most common excuses used to victimize African Americans during and after Reconstruction were that the victim had participated in
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Ida B. Wells is one of the most iconic African American women reformists that boldly challenged social injustices and demand for equality. She was raised in Holy Springs‚ Mississippi that was freed from slavery through the Emancipation Proclamation. Granted educational opportunities her enthusiasm to learn and the search for the truth grew which led her to many achievements on being a teacher‚ businesswomen‚ newspaper columnist‚ and investigative journalist. The best achievement though was her international
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arrest violated his rights under the 14th amendment and the law he broke was unconstitutional. The court ruled 8 to 1 that segregation laws were constitutional. Ida B. Wells was a courageous woman. She stood up for what she believed in regardless of the dangers she faced. She wrote about lynching and why it was wrong. She used her writing skills to bring attention to it in the United States and in England. She said there was no point to have government if you couldn’t get a fair trial. She had to
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Ida B. Wells uses a straight-forward writing style to prove a very bold argument against lynchingdiscrediting the excuse of rape‚ and more. Wells uses specific examples and theory to disprove the justifications of lynching made by Southerners. Within her pamphlets‚ Wells portrays the views of African-Americans in the 1890s. Southerners allowed widespread lynchings while hiding behind the excuse of "defending the honor of its women." (61) The charge of rape was used in many cases to lynch innocent
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individuals. One of the most violent anti-black ideas supported by Jim Crow Laws was lynching‚ whose horrors were brought into light by political activist‚ Ida B Wells‚ in her 1900 speech in Chicago‚ “Lynch Law in America”. In the speech‚ Wells explains that soon after the Civil War‚ “lynchings began...rapidly spreading into...various States until...the reign of the ‘unwritten law’ was supreme‚” (4). In other words‚ whites‚ shielded by state legislators‚ had the right to kill blacks for even minute (often
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Capitalism in that it nearly exclusively was targeted towards one group: black males who were a threatening rising class having gained freedom and as well by acquiring value in property. Lynching was a defense to an established White Male status quo. Ida B. Wells and her writings address these issues as an African American watching this occur. Wells calls it needless bloodshed‚ meant to both repress her people from rising‚ and to preserve White ego and self image; an image that was threatening to
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