Ida Bell Wells-Barnett was an
African AmericanAfrican Americans are citizens or residents of the United States who have at least partial ancestry from any of the native populations of Sub-Saharan Africa and are the direct descendants of enslaved Africans within the boundaries of the present United States...
journalistA journalist collects and distributes news and other information. A journalist's work is referred to as journalism.A reporter is a type of journalist who researchs, writes, and reports on information to be presented in mass media, including print media , electronic media , and digital media A...
,
newspaperA newspaper is a scheduled publication containing news of current events, informative articles, diverse features and advertising. It usually is printed on relatively inexpensive, low-grade paper such as newsprint. By 2007, there were 6580 daily newspapers in the world selling 395 million copies a...
editorCopy editing is the work that an editor does to improve the formatting, style, and accuracy of text. Unlike general editing, copy editing might not involve changing the substance of the text. Copy refers to written or typewritten text for typesetting, printing, or publication...
and, with her husband, newspaper owner Ferdinand L. Barnett, an early leader in the
civil rights movementThe civil rights movement was a worldwide political movement for equality before the law occurring between approximately 1950 and 1980. In many situations it took the form of campaigns of civil resistance aimed at achieving change by nonviolent forms of resistance. In some situations it was...
. She documented
lynching in the United StatesLynching, the practice of killing people by extrajudicial mob action, occurred in the United States chiefly from the late 18th century through the 1960s. Lynchings took place most frequently in the South from 1890 to the 1920s, with a peak in the annual toll in 1892.It is associated with...
, showing how it was often a way to control or punish blacks who competed with whites. She was active in the
women's rightsWomen's rights are entitlements and freedoms claimed for women and girls of all ages in many societies.In some places these rights are institutionalized or supported by law, local custom, and behaviour, whereas in others they may be ignored or suppressed...
and the
women's suffrage movementWoman suffrage in the United States was achieved gradually, at state and local levels, during the 19th Century and early 20th Century, culminating in 1920 with the passage of the Nineteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, which provided: "The right of citizens of the United States to...
, establishing several notable women's organizations. Wells was a skilled and persuasive rhetorician, and traveled internationally on lecture tours.
Life
Ida B. Wells was born in
Holly Springs, MississippiHolly Springs is a city in Marshall County, Mississippi, United States. The population was 7,957 at the 2000 census. It is the county seat of Marshall County. A short drive from Memphis, Tennessee, Holly Springs is the site of a number of well-preserved antebellum homes and other structures and...
in 1862, just before
PresidentThe President of the United States of America is the head of state and head of government of the United States. The president leads the executive branch of the federal government and is the commander-in-chief of the United States Armed Forces....
Abraham LincolnAbraham Lincoln was the 16th President of the United States, serving from March 1861 until his assassination in April 1865. He successfully led his country through a great constitutional, military and moral crisis – the American Civil War – preserving the Union, while ending slavery, and...
issued the
Emancipation ProclamationThe Emancipation Proclamation is an executive order issued by United States President Abraham Lincoln on January 1, 1863, during the American Civil War using his war powers. It proclaimed the freedom of 3.1 million of the nation's 4 million slaves, and immediately freed 50,000 of them, with nearly...
. Her father James Wells was a carpenter and her mother was Elizabeth "Lizzie" Warrenton Wells. Both parents were enslaved until freed under the Proclamation, one year after she was born.
Ida’s father James was a master at carpentry and known as a "race man", someone who worked for the advancement of blacks. He was very interested in politics, and was a member of the Loyal League. He attended public speeches and campaigned for local black candidates, but he never ran for office. Her mother Elizabeth was a cook for the Bolling household before her death from
yellow feverYellow fever is an acute viral hemorrhagic disease. The virus is a 40 to 50 nm enveloped RNA virus with positive sense of the Flaviviridae family....
. She was a religious woman who was very strict with her children. Wells' parents took their children's education very seriously. They wanted their children to take advantage of having the opportunity to be educated and attend school.
Wells attended the
Freedmen's SchoolThe Freedmen's Bureau, was a U.S. federal government agency that aided distressed freedmen in 1865–1869, during the Reconstruction era of the United States....
Shaw University, now
Rust CollegeRust College is a historically black liberal arts college located in Holly Springs, Mississippi. Located approximately 35 miles southeast of Memphis, Tennessee, it is the second-oldest private college in the state...
in Holly Springs. She was expelled from the college for her rebellious behavior and temper after confronting the president of the college. While visiting her grandmother in the Mississippi Valley in 1878, she received word that her hometown of Holly Springs had suffered a
yellow feverYellow fever is an acute viral hemorrhagic disease. The virus is a 40 to 50 nm enveloped RNA virus with positive sense of the Flaviviridae family....
epidemicIn epidemiology, an epidemic , occurs when new cases of a certain disease, in a given human population, and during a given period, substantially exceed what is expected based on recent experience...
. At the age of 16, she lost both her parents and her 10-month old brother, Stanley, the youngest. The 1878 epidemic swept through the South with many fatalities.
Following the funerals, friends and relatives decided that the six remaining Wells children should be sent to various foster homes. Wells resisted this solution. To keep her younger siblings together as a family, she dropped out of Rust College and found work as a
teacherA teacher or schoolteacher is a person who provides education for pupils and students . The role of teacher is often formal and ongoing, carried out at a school or other place of formal education. In many countries, a person who wishes to become a teacher must first obtain specified professional...
in a black elementary school. (The schools were racially segregated.) Her grandmother Peggy Wells, along with other friends and relatives, stayed with the children during the week while she was away teaching. Without this help, she would have not been able to keep her siblings together. She resented that white teachers were paid $80 a month in public schools when she was paid only $30 a month. This discrimination made her more interested in the politics of race and improving the education of blacks.
In 1883, Wells took three of her younger siblings to
MemphisMemphis is a city in the southwestern corner of the U.S. state of Tennessee, and the county seat of Shelby County. The city is located on the 4th Chickasaw Bluff, south of the confluence of the Wolf and Mississippi rivers....
, Tennessee, to live with her aunt and to be closer to other family members. She found she could earn higher wages there as a teacher. Soon after moving, she was hired in Woodstock for the
Shelby CountyShelby County is the name of nine counties in the United States of America, all named for Isaac Shelby of Kentucky. The Shelby County name gained fame in C.W. McCall's song "Classified"...
school system. During her summer vacations, she attended summer sessions at
Fisk UniversityFisk University is an historically black university founded in 1866 in Nashville, Tennessee, U.S. The world-famous Fisk Jubilee Singers started as a group of students who performed to earn enough money to save the school at a critical time of financial shortages. They toured to raise funds to...
, a historically black college in
NashvilleNashville is the capital of the U.S. state of Tennessee and the county seat of Davidson County. It is located on the Cumberland River in Davidson County, in the north-central part of the state. The city is a center for the health care, publishing, banking and transportation industries, and is home...
; its graduates were well respected in the black community. She also attended LeMoyne Institute. Wells held strong political opinions and provoked many people with her views on women's rights. When she was 24, she wrote, "I will not begin at this late day by doing what my soul abhors; sugaring men, weak deceitful creatures, with flattery to retain them as escorts or to gratify a revenge."
On May 4, 1884, a
train conductorA conductor is a member of a railway train's crew that is responsible for operational and safety duties that do not involve the actual operation of the train. The title of conductor is most associated with railway operations in North America, but the role of conductor is common to railways...
Chesapeake and Ohio Railroad ordered Wells to give up her seat and move to the smoking car, which was already crowded with other passengers. The year before,
Supreme CourtA supreme court is the highest court within the hierarchy of many legal jurisdictions. Other descriptions for such courts include court of last resort, instance court, judgment court, high court, or apex court...
had
struck downConstitutionality is the condition of acting in accordance with an applicable constitution. Acts that are not in accordance with the rules laid down in the constitution are deemed to be ultra vires.-See also:*ultra vires*Company law*Constitutional law...
the federal
Civil Rights Act of 1875The Civil Rights Act of 1875 was a United States federal law proposed by Senator Charles Sumner and Representative Benjamin F. Butler in 1870...
, which banned racial discrimination in public accommodations. Several railroad companies continued legal racial segregation of their passengers, especially when traveling in the South.
Wells refused to give up her seat, 71 years before the activist
Rosa ParksRosa Louise McCauley Parks was an African-American civil rights activist, whom the U.S. Congress called "the first lady of civil rights", and "the mother of the freedom movement"....
showed similar resistance on a bus. The conductor and two men dragged Wells out of the car. When she returned to Memphis, she hired an African-American attorney to sue the railroad. Wells became a public figure in Memphis when she wrote a newspaper article for The Living Way, a black church weekly, about her treatment on the train. When her lawyer was paid off by the railroad, she hired a white attorney. She won her case on December 24, 1884, when the local circuit court granted her a $500 settlement. The railroad company appealed to the
Tennessee Supreme CourtThe Tennessee Supreme Court is the state supreme court of the state of Tennessee. Cornelia Clark is the current Chief Justice.Unlike other states, in which the state attorney general is directly elected or appointed by the governor or state legislature, the Tennessee Supreme Court appoints the...
, which reversed the lower court's ruling in 1885. It concluded, "We think it is evident that the purpose of the defendant in error was to harass with a view to this suit, and that her persistence was not in good faith to obtain a comfortable seat for the short ride." Wells was ordered to pay court costs.
While teaching
elementary schoolAn elementary school or primary school is an institution where children receive the first stage of compulsory education known as elementary or primary education. Elementary school is the preferred term in some countries, particularly those in North America, where the terms grade school and grammar...
, Wells was offered an editorial position for the
Evening StarEvening Star is the name given to the planet Venus when it appears in the West after sunset; the ancient Greeks gave it the name Hesperus. It may also refer to:-People:* Arwen, an elf-maiden in J.R.R...
. She also wrote weekly articles for The Living Way weekly newspaper under the
pen nameA pen name, nom de plume, or literary double, is a pseudonym adopted by an author. A pen name may be used to make the author's name more distinctive, to disguise his or her gender, to distance an author from some or all of his or her works, to protect the author from retribution for his or her...
"Iola." She gained a reputation for writing about the race issue in the United States. In 1889, she became co-owner and editor of Free Speech and Headlight, an anti-segregationist newspaper that was started by Rev R. Nightingale and was based at the Beale Street Baptist Church in Memphis. It published articles about racial injustice.
In March 1892, racial tensions were rising in Memphis. Violence was becoming the norm. Her three friends, Thomas Moss, Calvin McDowell, and Henry Stewart, owned the People's Grocery Company. It was doing well and was seen as competitive with a white-owned grocery store across the street. While Wells was out of town in
Natchez, MississippiNatchez is the county seat of Adams County, Mississippi, United States. With a total population of 18,464 , it is the largest community and the only incorporated municipality within Adams County...
, a white mob invaded her friends' store. During the altercation, three white men were shot and injured. Moss, McDowell, and Stewart were arrested and jailed. A large
lynch mobLynching, the practice of killing people by extrajudicial mob action, occurred in the United States chiefly from the late 18th century through the 1960s. Lynchings took place most frequently in the South from 1890 to the 1920s, with a peak in the annual toll in 1892.It is associated with...
stormed the jail cells and killed the three men.
After the lynching of her friends, Wells wrote in Free Speech and Headlight, urging blacks to leave Memphis:
Wells emphasized the public spectacle of the lynching. Over 6,000 blacks did leave; others organized
boycottA boycott is an act of voluntarily abstaining from using, buying, or dealing with a person, organization, or country as an expression of protest, usually for political reasons...
s of white-owned businesses. After being threatened with violence, Wells bought a
pistolWhen distinguished as a subset of handguns, a pistol is a handgun with a chamber that is integral with the barrel, as opposed to a revolver, wherein the chamber is separate from the barrel as a revolving cylinder. Typically, pistols have an effective range of about 100 feet.-History:The pistol...
. She later wrote, "They had made me an exile and threatened my life for hinting at the truth."
The murder drove Wells' to research and document lynchings and their causes. She began
investigative journalismInvestigative journalism is a form of journalism in which reporters deeply investigate a single topic of interest, often involving crime, political corruption, or corporate wrongdoing. An investigative journalist may spend months or years researching and preparing a report. Investigative journalism...
, looking at the charges given for the murders. She officially started her anti-lynching campaign. She spoke on the issue at various black women’s clubs, and raised more than $500 to investigate lynchings and publish her results. Wells found that blacks were lynched for such reasons as failing to pay debts, not appearing to give way to whites, competing with whites economically, being drunk in public. She published her findings in a pamphlet entitled "Southern Horrors: Lynch Laws in All Its Phases". She wrote an article that suggested that, unlike the myth that white women were sexually at risk of attacks by black men, most liaisons between black men and white women were consensual. While she was away in Philadelphia, a mob destroyed the offices of the Free Speech and Headlight on May 27, 1892 in retaliation for her controversial articles, three months after her three friends were lynched.
Wells next spoke to groups in New York City, where her audiences included many leading African-American women. Because of the threats to her life, she moved from Memphis to Chicago. Wells continued to wage her anti-lynching campaign and to write columns attacking Southern injustices. Her articles were published in The New York Age newspaper. Her writings continued to investigate the incidents that were referred to as causes for lynching black men.
Together with
Frederick DouglassFrederick Douglass was an American social reformer, orator, writer and statesman. After escaping from slavery, he became a leader of the abolitionist movement, gaining note for his dazzling oratory and incisive antislavery writing...
and other black leaders, she organized a black boycott of the 1893
World's Columbian ExpositionThe World's Columbian Exposition was a World's Fair held in Chicago in 1893 to celebrate the 400th anniversary of Christopher Columbus's arrival in the New World in 1492. Chicago bested New York City; Washington, D.C.; and St...
in Chicago, for its failure to collaborate with the black community on exhibits representing African-American life. Wells, Douglass, Irvine Garland Penn and Ferdinand L. Barnett wrote sections of a pamphlet to be distributed there: "Reasons Why the Colored American Is Not in the World's Columbian Exposition" detailed the progress of blacks since their arrival in America and the workings of Southern lynchings. Wells later reported to
Albion W. TourgéeAlbion Winegar Tourgée was an American soldier, Radical Republican, lawyer, judge, novelist, and diplomat. A pioneer civil rights activist, he founded the National Citizens' Rights Association and litigated for the plaintiff Homer Plessy in the famous segregation case Plessy v. Ferguson...
that copies of the pamphlet had been distributed to more than 20,000 people at the fair. After the World's Fair in Chicago, Wells decided to stay in the city instead of returning to New York. That year she started work with the Chicago Conservator, the oldest African-American newspaper in the city.
Also in 1893, Wells contemplated a libel suit against two black Memphis attorneys. She turned to Tourgée, who had trained and practiced as a lawyer and judge, for possible free legal help. Deeply in debt, Tourgée could not afford to help but asked his friend Ferdinand L. Barnett if he could. Barnett accepted the pro bono job. Born in
AlabamaAlabama is a state located in the southeastern region of the United States. It is bordered by Tennessee to the north, Georgia to the east, Florida and the Gulf of Mexico to the south, and Mississippi to the west. Alabama ranks 30th in total land area and ranks second in the size of its inland...
, Barnett had become the editor of the Chicago Conservator in 1878. He was an assistant state attorney for 14 years.
Marriage and family
In 1895, Wells married Barnett. She set an early precedent as being one of the first married American women to keep her own last name along with her husband's.
The couple had four children: Charles, Herman, Ida, and Alfreda. In her autobiography, A Divided Duty, Wells described the difficulty she had splitting her time between her family and her work. She continued to work after the birth of her first child, traveling and bringing the infant Charles with her. Although she tried to balance her worlds, she could not be as active in her work.
Susan B. AnthonySusan Brownell Anthony was a prominent American civil rights leader who played a pivotal role in the 19th century women's rights movement to introduce women's suffrage into the United States. She was co-founder of the first Women's Temperance Movement with Elizabeth Cady Stanton as President...
said she seemed "distracted". After having her second child, Wells stepped out of her touring and public life for a time, as she could no longer balance her job with her family.
Later public career
Wells received much support from other social activists and her fellow clubwomen. In his response to her article in the Free Speech, Frederick Douglass expressed approval of her work: "You have done your people and mine a service…What a revelation of existing conditions your writing has been for me." (Freedman, 1994). Wells took her anti-lynching campaign to Europe with the help of many supporters. In 1896, Wells founded the National Association of Colored Women, and also founded the National Afro-American Council. Wells formed the Women's Era Club, the first civic organization for African-American women. This later was named the Ida B. Wells Club, in honor of its founder.
In 1899, Wells was struggling to manage a home life and a career life, but she was still a fierce campaigner in the anti-lynching circle. This was illustrated when the National Association of Colored Women's club met that year in Chicago. To Wells' surprise, she was not invited to take part in the convention. When she confronted the president of the club, Mrs. Terrell told her that the women of Chicago wrote to say that if Wells were to take part in the club, they would no longer aid the association. Wells later learned that Terrell's own competitiveness played a part.
After traveling through the British Isles and the United States teaching and lecturing about the problem of lynchings in the United states, Wells settled in Chicago and worked to improve conditions for its rapidly growing African-American population. People were starting to move out of the South to northern industrial cities in the
Great MigrationThe Great Migration was the movement of 6 million blacks out of the Southern United States to the Northeast, Midwest, and West from 1910 to 1970. Some historians differentiate between a Great Migration , numbering about 1.6 million migrants, and a Second Great Migration , in which 5 million or more...
. Competition for jobs and housing caused a rise in social tensions because of the rapid changes. African-American migrants also competed with an expanding wave of rural immigrants from Europe. , who were now in competition for jobs. Wells spent the latter thirty years of her life in Chicago working on urban reform. She also raised her family and worked on her autobiography. After her retirement, Wells wrote her autobiography, Crusade for Justice (1928).
She never finished it; the book ends in the middle of a sentence, in the middle of a word. Wells died of
uremiaUremia or uraemia is a term used to loosely describe the illness accompanying kidney failure , in particular the nitrogenous waste products associated with the failure of this organ....
(kidney failure) in Chicago on March 25, 1931, at the age of sixty-eight.
Europe
Wells took two tours to Europe on her campaign for justice, the first in 1893 and the second in 1894. While she was in Europe she spent her time in both Scotland and England, where she gave many speeches and newspaper interviews.
In 1893, Wells went to
Great BritainGreat Britain or Britain is an island situated to the northwest of Continental Europe. It is the ninth largest island in the world, and the largest European island, as well as the largest of the British Isles...
at the invitation of
Catherine ImpeyCatherine Impey was a British Quaker activist against racial discrimination. She founded Britain's first anti-racist journal, Anti-Caste, in March 1888 and edited it until its last edition in 1895....
, a British Quaker. An opponent of imperialism and proponent of racial equality, Impey wanted to ensure that the British public learned about the problem of lynching. Wells rallied a moral crusade among the British. Although Wells and her speeches, complete with at least one grisly photograph showing grinning white children posing beneath a suspended corpse, caused a stir among audiences, they still remained doubtful. Her intentions were to raise money and expose the United States problem with lynching, but Wells was paid so little that she could barely pay her travel expenses.
Wells returned to Great Britain in 1894. Before leaving she called on William Penn Nixon, the editor of Daily Inter-Ocean. This was a Chicago paper that the local Republican Party organ and competitor to the Democratic Chicago Tribune. The Daily Inter- Ocean was the only paper in the US that persistently denounced lynching. After she told Nixon about her planned tour in England, he asked her to write for the newspaper while on tour. She became the first black woman to be a paid correspondent for a mainstream white newspaper. (Tourgée had been writing a column for the same paper.) Ida B. Wells Abroad.”
One article was “In Pembroke Chapel.” She was invited to speak by the minister C.F. Aked. He found it difficult to accept her accounts, but after traveling to the New York World’s Fair, read in local papers about the Miller lynching in
Bardwell, KentuckyBardwell is a city in Carlisle County, Kentucky, United States. The population was 799 at the 2000 census. It is the county seat of Carlisle County.-Geography:Bardwell is located at ....
. He realized that Wells' accounts were accurate. Wells was effective in speaking to European audiences. They were shocked to learn about the extent of violence against blacks in the US. Wells' two tours to Europe helped gain support for her cause. She called for the formation of groups to formally protest the lynchings. Wells helped catalyze anti-lynching groups in Europe, who tried to press the US to guarantee the safety of blacks in the South.
Willard controversy
It was in England that Wells and
Frances WillardFrances Elizabeth Caroline Willard was an American educator, temperance reformer, and women's suffragist. Her influence was instrumental in the passage of the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Amendments to the United States Constitution...
first clashed. Willard was the secretary of the
Woman's Christian Temperance UnionThe Woman's Christian Temperance Union was the first mass organization among women devoted to social reform with a program that "linked the religious and the secular through concerted and far-reaching reform strategies based on applied Christianity." Originally organized on December 23, 1873, in...
, one of the most formidable women's organizations in the country, with branches in every state and a membership of over 200,000. Willard had used the issue of
temperanceA temperance movement is a social movement urging reduced use of alcoholic beverages. Temperance movements may criticize excessive alcohol use, promote complete abstinence , or pressure the government to enact anti-alcohol legislation or complete prohibition of alcohol.-Temperance movement by...
to politicize women who saw organizing for suffrage as too radical.
Wells' anti-lynching campaign brought the two to England concurrently. As Wells described the horrors of American lynchings, British liberals were incredulous that White women such as Willard–who had been heralded in the English press as the "Uncrowned Queen of American Democracy"–would turn a blind eye to such violence. Wells correctly accused Willard of being silent on the issue of lynchings, and of making racial comments which would add fuel to the fire of mob violence. To support her assertion, Wells referred to an interview Willard had conducted during a tour of the South in which Willard had blamed Blacks for the defeat of temperance legislation there and had cast aspersions on the race. "The colored race multiplies like the locusts of Egypt," she had said, and "the
grogThe word grog refers to a variety of alcoholic beverages. The word originally referred to a drink made with water or "small beer" and rum, which British Vice Admiral Edward Vernon introduced into the Royal Navy on 21 August 1740. Vernon wore a coat of grogram cloth and was nicknamed Old Grogram or...
shop is its center of power... The safety of women, of childhood, of the home is menaced in a thousand localities."
In response, Willard and her powerful hostess and counterpart, Lady Somerset, attempted to use their influence to keep Wells' comments out of the press. Wells responded by revealing that despite Willard's abolitionist forbears and Black friends, no Black women were admitted to the WCTU's southern branches.
The dispute between Wells and Willard in England intensified the mean campaign against Wells in the American Press. The New York Times ran an article insisting that Black men were prone to rape, and that Wells was a "slanderous and nasty minded mulatress" who was looking for more "income" than "outcome." These vitriolic attacks in the American press swayed many Britons to Wells' cause. "It is idle for men to say that the conditions which Miss Wells describes do not exist," a British editor wrote. "Whites of America may not think so; British Christianity does and all the scurrility of the American press won't alter the facts."
Wells' British tour was ultimately a personal success, and led to the formation of the British Anti-Lynching Committee, which included such notables and the Duke of Argyll, the Archiboshop of Canterbury, members of Parliament, and the editors of The Manchester Guardian.
Writings (Southern Horrors and The Red Record)
In 1892 she published a
pamphletA pamphlet is an unbound booklet . It may consist of a single sheet of paper that is printed on both sides and folded in half, in thirds, or in fourths , or it may consist of a few pages that are folded in half and saddle stapled at the crease to make a simple book...
titled Southern Horrors: Lynch Law in All Its Phases, and A Red Record, 1892–1894, which documented research on a lynching. Having examined many accounts of lynching based on alleged "rape of white women," she concluded that Southerners concocted rape as an excuse to hide their real reason for lynchings: black economic progress, which threatened not only white Southerners' pocketbooks, but also their ideas about black inferiority.
The Red Record is a one hundred page pamphlet describing lynching in the United States since the Emancipation Proclamation, while also describing blacks’ struggles since the time of the Emancipation Proclamation. The Red Record begins by explaining the alarming severity of the lynching situation in the United States. An ignorance of lynching in the U.S., according to Wells, developed over a span of ten years. Wells talks about slavery, saying the black man’s body and soul were owned by the white man. The soul was dwarfed by the white man, and the body was preserved because of its value. She mentions that “ten thousand Negroes have been killed in cold blood, without the formality of judicial trial and legal execution,” therefore launching her campaign against lynching in this pamphlet, The Red Record.
Frederick Douglass wrote an article explaining three eras of Southern barbarism and the excuses that coincided with each. Wells goes into detail about each excuse:
- The first excuse that Wells explains is the “necessity of the white man to repress and stamp out alleged ‘race riots.’” Once the Civil War ended, there were many riots supposedly being planned by blacks; whites panicked and resisted them forcefully.
- The second excuse came during the Reconstruction Era: blacks were lynched because whites feared “Negro Domination” and wanted to stay powerful in the government. Wells encouraged those threatened to move their families somewhere safe.
- The third excuse was: Blacks had “to be killed to avenge their assaults upon women.” Wells explains that any relationship between a white woman and a black man was considered rape during that time period. In this article she states, “Nobody in this section of the country believes the old threadbare lie that Negro men rape white women.”
Wells lists fourteen pages of statistics concerning lynching done from 1892–1895; she also includes pages of graphic stories detailing lynching done in the South. She credits the findings to white correspondents, white press bureaus, and white newspapers. The Red Record was a huge pamphlet, not only in size, but in influence.
Rhetorical Style and Effect
Wells’ 1892 speech, Southern Horrors: Lynch Law in All Its Phases is important as a historical document and as the initiating event in what became a social movement; as a
rhetoricRhetoric is the art of discourse, an art that aims to improve the facility of speakers or writers who attempt to inform, persuade, or motivate particular audiences in specific situations. As a subject of formal study and a productive civic practice, rhetoric has played a central role in the Western...
al work, it is significant in three respects.
First, as in her writings, she used evidence and argument in highly sophisticated ways, ways that prevented members of the audience from dismissing her claims as biased or untrue.
Second, the speech was an insightful and sophisticated analysis of the interrelationship of sex, race, and class.
Third, in contrast to the rhetorical acts of women, this speech contained no stylistic markers indicating attempts by a woman speaker to appear “womanly” in what is perceived as a male role-that of rhetor.
Wells’ use of evidence and argument had to overcome severe obstacles. She had to refute the cultural history of sexism that made the cry of rape (of a white woman) adequate justification for violence against Afro-Americans.
In order to prove this point, Wells’ used evidence from irrefutable sources. She used an excerpt from her own originally anonymous editorial in the Memphis Free Speech which was in response to the unlawful murders of three of her fellow townsmen, as well as two responses to her editorial from white newspapers: The Daily Commercial and The Evening Scimitar.
The Daily Commercial of Wednesday following, May 25, contained the following leader:
The Evening Scimitar of same date, copied the Commercial's editorial with these words of comment:
Her seventeen relatively detailed examples of the lynching of African Americans allowed her audience to weigh the evidence and consider its plausibility, and the fact that much of it came from the public press, in some cases from white southern newspapers as shown above, added to the credibility of her accounts. Emotional response was prompted by the argument of these details rather than by exhortation.
By examining Wells’ speech through an application of the classical
rhetoricRhetoric is the art of discourse, an art that aims to improve the facility of speakers or writers who attempt to inform, persuade, or motivate particular audiences in specific situations. As a subject of formal study and a productive civic practice, rhetoric has played a central role in the Western...
tradition as influenced by the beliefs of
AristotleAristotle was a Greek philosopher and polymath, a student of Plato and teacher of Alexander the Great. His writings cover many subjects, including physics, metaphysics, poetry, theater, music, logic, rhetoric, linguistics, politics, government, ethics, biology, and zoology...
, it is obvious that by including the gruesome details of the several lynchings she uses for examples, Wells is appealing to her the
ethosEthos is a Greek word meaning "character" that is used to describe the guiding beliefs or ideals that characterize a community, nation, or ideology. The Greeks also used this word to refer to the power of music to influence its hearer's emotions, behaviors, and even morals. Early Greek stories of...
of her audience.
Throughout this argument there was a strong appeal to fundamental values of fairness, to the right to trial by jury, and to the right to full and careful investigation of crimes, appeals that added weight to her accusation that silent bystanders were guilty of complicity. These are also examples of Wells’ appeal to
logos' is an important term in philosophy, psychology, rhetoric and religion. Originally a word meaning "a ground", "a plea", "an opinion", "an expectation", "word," "speech," "account," "reason," it became a technical term in philosophy, beginning with Heraclitus ' is an important term in...
.
Wells was remarkable for her skill in the use of argument and evidence. Further, she was a woman who assumed the role of rhetor and made no attempt to give that role a womanly cast.
In addition to remarkable skill in the use of both argument and evidence, her work was also augmented through her exceptional personal record keeping; throughout her life she kept detailed journals which are kept at the University of Chicago in special collections. These journals in her own handwriting reveal notes on special events and in the drafts of her autobiography there are references made to records she kept decades prior to beginning her autobiography.
Her attention to detail in the midst of all the struggles that surrounded her adds to her historical significance as an important rhetorician. When she wrote her autobiography she referred not only to her own detailed notes in journals throughout her life, but also to newspaper and other historical clippings.
Looking at the legacy of her work as an entire collection reveals her additional noteworthy ability to adapt a message to the audience she was addressing as she wrote not only in papers, and for speeches, but also in church pamphlets and for community organizations.
Her life reveals a tenacity to push ahead despite every obstacle- to promote an idea and use every possible resource at ones disposal. Wells used her position as a teacher, a community member, a political activist, a mother, an editor, and an ordinary citizen to disseminate her rhetorical work. Her grandchildren have established a museum, a scholarship, a yearly birthday celebration, and a website to continue her extraordinary and historically remarkable work.
Wells and W. E. B. Du Bois
The lives of W.E.B. Du Bois and Ida B. Wells often ran along parallel tracks. Both used their journalistic writing to condemn lynching. Wells and Du Bois seemed to disagree on the story of how Wells’ name was removed from the original list of NAACP founders. Du Bois was more silent on the issue implying Wells chose not to be included. However, in her autobiography, Wells complains that Du Bois deliberately excluded her from the list.
Legacy
Throughout her life Wells was militant in her demands for equality and justice for African-Americans and insisted that the African-American community win justice through its own efforts. Since her death interest in her life and legacy has only grown. Her life is the subject of a widely performed musical drama, which debuted in 2006, by
Tazewell ThompsonTazewell Thompson , is a playwright, a director, and former Artistic Director of the Westport Country Playhouse in Westport, Connecticut.He was born in New York City....
, Constant Star. The play sums her up:
On February 1, 1990, the
United States Postal ServiceThe United States Postal Service is an independent agency of the United States government responsible for providing postal service in the United States...
issued a 25 cent
postage stampA postage stamp is a small piece of paper that is purchased and displayed on an item of mail as evidence of payment of postage. Typically, stamps are made from special paper, with a national designation and denomination on the face, and a gum adhesive on the reverse side...
in her honor. In 2002,
Molefi Kete AsanteMolefi Kete Asante is an African-American scholar, historian, and philosopher. He is a leading figure in the fields of African American studies, African Studies and Communication Studies...
listed Wells on his list of
100 Greatest African Americans100 Greatest African Americans is a biographical dictionary of the one hundred historically greatest African Americans , as assessed by Molefi Kete Asante in 2002.-Criteria:...
.
In 1941, the WPA built the Ida B. Wells homes in Chicago. The buildings are slated for demolition.
Further reading
- The Memphis Diary of Ida B. Wells, memoirs, travel notes and selected articles (Beacon Press, 1995)
- Ida B. Wells, "Lynch Law" (1893), History Is a Weapon Website, Women's Movement, Civil Rights Leaders | accessdate = 2007-12-09 | author = Lee D. Baker | publisher = Duke University
Duke University is a private research university located in Durham, North Carolina, United States. Founded by Methodists and Quakers in the present day town of Trinity in 1838, the school moved to Durham in 1892. In 1924, tobacco industrialist James B...
}}
- Bio: "Ida B. Wells-Barnett", Africa Within Website
- Davidson, James West. They say': Ida B. Wells and the Reconstruction of Race. Oxford University Press, 2009. ISBN 978-0-19-516021-5
External links