Ida B. Wells
American journalist and civil rights leader (1862 to 1931); author of Southern Horrors: Lynch Law in All Its Phases.
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What they believe
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The Afro-American race is more sinned against than sinning, and someone had to show it
Somebody must show that the Afro-American race is more sinned against than sinning, and it seems to have fallen upon me to do so.
gutenberg.orgSaid c. 1892This on korrents
The bold line is korrents’ wording; the quote is theirs. These one: what they wrote before what they said aloud, one per source, newest first.
Beliefs
Korrents What they believe 17 beliefs — each backed by an exact quote.
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The Afro-American race is more sinned against than sinning, and someone had to show it
Somebody must show that the Afro-American race is more sinned against than sinning, and it seems to have fallen upon me to do so.
Southern Horrors: Lynch Law in All Its Phases (1892) Said c. 1892
The claim that Black men rape white women is an old, worn-out lie nobody believes
Nobody in this section of the country believes the old thread-bare lie that Negro men rape white women.
Southern Horrors: Lynch Law in All Its Phases (1892) Said c. 1892
Rape was unknown during the Civil War, when white Southern women were at Black men's mercy
The thinking public will not easily believe freedom and education more brutalizing than slavery, and the world knows that the crime of rape was unknown during four years of civil war, when the white women of the South were at the mercy of the race which is all at once charged with being a bestial one.
Southern Horrors: Lynch Law in All Its Phases (1892) Said c. 1892
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White men lynch Black men for consensual relationships with white women, not for rape
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. White men lynch the offending Afro-American, not because he is a despoiler of virtue, but because he succumbs to the smiles of white women.
Southern Horrors: Lynch Law in All Its Phases (1892) Said c. 1892
Those who refuse fair trials for accused rapists care less about rape than they pretend
They know the men of the section of the country who refuse this are not so desirous of punishing rapists as they pretend. The utterances of the leading white men show that with them it is not the crime but the class.
Southern Horrors: Lynch Law in All Its Phases (1892) Said c. 1892
The so-called race question is really about using religion, science and law to excuse crimes against a race
These are not pleasant facts, but they are illustrative of the vital phase of the so-called race question, which should properly be designated an earnest inquiry as to the best methods by which religion, science, law and political power may be employed to excuse injustice, barbarity and crime done to a people because of race and color.
Southern Horrors: Lynch Law in All Its Phases (1892) Said c. 1892
The South hides lynching behind the screen of defending the honor of its women
To palliate this record (which grows worse as the Afro-American becomes intelligent) and excuse some of the most heinous crimes that ever stained the history of a country, the South is shielding itself behind the plausible screen of defending the honor of its women.
Southern Horrors: Lynch Law in All Its Phases (1892) Said c. 1892
The rape cry has silenced press and pulpit on lynching
This cry has had its effect. It has closed the heart, stifled the conscience, warped the judgment and hushed the voice of press and pulpit on the subject of lynch law throughout this "land of liberty."
Southern Horrors: Lynch Law in All Its Phases (1892) Said c. 1892
Conceding a right to lynch for one crime concedes the right to lynch anyone for anything
They forget that a concession of the right to lynch a man for a certain crime, not only concedes the right to lynch any person for any crime, but (so frequently is the cry of rape now raised) it is in a fair way to stamp us a race of rapists and desperadoes.
Southern Horrors: Lynch Law in All Its Phases (1892) Said c. 1892
Lynching has brutalized the South more than it realizes and imperils law and order
The South is brutalized to a degree not realized by its own inhabitants, and the very foundation of government, law and order, are imperilled.
Southern Horrors: Lynch Law in All Its Phases (1892) Said c. 1892
Lynchers will only be punished when public sentiment demands it
The strong arm of the law must be brought to bear upon lynchers in severe punishment, but this cannot and will not be done unless a healthy public sentiment demands and sustains such action.
Southern Horrors: Lynch Law in All Its Phases (1892) Said c. 1892
Southerners who disapprove of lynching but stay silent are as guilty as the lynchers
The men and women in the South who disapprove of lynching and remain silent on the perpetration of such outrages, are particeps criminis, accomplices, accessories before and after the fact, equally guilty with the actual lawbreakers who would not persist if they did not know that neither the law nor militia would be employed against them.
Southern Horrors: Lynch Law in All Its Phases (1892) Said c. 1892
Appealing to white men's pockets works better than appealing to their conscience
The appeal to the white man's pocket has ever been more effectual than all the appeals ever made to his conscience. Nothing, absolutely nothing, is to be gained by a further sacrifice of manhood and self-respect.
Southern Horrors: Lynch Law in All Its Phases (1892) Said c. 1892
Every Black home should keep a Winchester rifle for the protection the law refuses
The lesson this teaches and which every Afro-American should ponder well, is that a Winchester rifle should have a place of honor in every black home, and it should be used for that protection which the law refuses to give.
Southern Horrors: Lynch Law in All Its Phases (1892) Said c. 1892
The more Black Americans yield and beg, the more they are insulted and lynched
The more the Afro-American yields and cringes and begs, the more he has to do so, the more he is insulted, outraged and lynched.
Southern Horrors: Lynch Law in All Its Phases (1892) Said c. 1892
Had she been white, thirteen-year-old Mildrey Brown would never have been hanged even if proven guilty
If her guilt had been proven unmistakably, had she been white, Mildrey Brown would never have been hung.
Southern Horrors: Lynch Law in All Its Phases (1892) Said c. 1892
Boycott, emigration and the press together can stamp out lynch law
I have shown how he may employ the boycott, emigration and the press, and I feel that by a combination of all these agencies can be effectually stamped out lynch law, that last relic of barbarism and slavery.
Southern Horrors: Lynch Law in All Its Phases (1892) Said c. 1892
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