115-491: Iola or IOLA may refer to: Iola , the nom de plume of American writer Ida B. Wells Iola (steamboat 1885) , a steamboat active on Puget Sound from 1885 to 1915 Interest on Lawyer Trust Accounts , a method of raising money for charitable purposes in the United States Myrmarachne , a genus of jumping spiders Places [ edit ] In
230-533: A historically Black college in Nashville , Tennessee. She also attended LeMoyne–Owen College , a historically Black college in Memphis. She held strong political opinions and provoked many people with her views on women's rights. At the age of 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
345-493: A $ 500 (~$ 16,956 in 2023) award. The railroad company appealed to the Tennessee Supreme Court , which reversed the lower court's ruling in 1887. 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. Her reaction to
460-986: A Race and Within Our Gates , African American–directed films that presented more positive images of blacks. While the frequency of lynching dropped in the 1930s, there was a spike in 1930 during the Great Depression. For example, in North Texas and southern Oklahoma alone, four people were lynched in separate incidents in less than a month. A spike in lynchings occurred after World War II , as tensions arose after veterans returned home. White people tried to re-impose white supremacy over returning Black veterans. The last documented mass lynching occurred in Walton County, Georgia , in 1946, when local white landowners killed two war veterans and their wives. Soviet media frequently covered racial discrimination in
575-627: A few to thousands. Lynching steadily increased after the Civil War, peaking in 1892. Lynchings remained common into the early 1900s, accelerating with the emergence of the Second Ku Klux Klan . Lynchings declined considerably by the time of the Great Depression . The 1955 lynching of Emmett Till , a 14-year-old African-American boy, galvanized the civil rights movement and marked the last classical lynching (as recorded by
690-670: A job with The New York Age and continued her anti-lynching campaign from New York. For the next three years, she resided in Harlem , initially as a guest at the home of Timothy Thomas Fortune (1856–1928) and wife, Carrie Fortune (née Caroline Charlotte Smiley; 1860–1940). According to Kenneth W. Goings, no copy of the Memphis Free Speech survives. The only knowledge of the newspaper ever existing comes from reprinted articles in other archived newspapers. On October 26, 1892, Wells began to publish her research on lynching in
805-537: A lynching in Tunica, Mississippi , in 1892 where she concluded that the father of a young white woman had implored a lynch mob to kill a Black man with whom his daughter was having a sexual relationship, under a pretense "to save the reputation of his daughter". In a 1909 speech at the National Negro Conference, Wells said: During the last ten years from 1899 to 1908 inclusive the number lynched
920-685: A moral crusade among the British. She relied heavily on her pamphlet Southern Horrors in her first tour, and showed shocking photographs of lynchings in America. On May 17, 1894, she spoke in Birmingham , West Midlands , at the Young Men's Christian Assembly and at Central Hall , staying in Edgbaston at 66 Gough Road. On June 25, 1894, at Bradford she gave a "sensational address, though in
1035-471: A pamphlet titled Southern Horrors: Lynch Law in All Its Phases . Having examined many accounts of lynchings due to the alleged "rape of white women", she concluded that Southerners accused Black men of rape to hide their real reasons for lynchings: Black economic progress, which white Southerners saw as a threat to their own economic progress, and white ideas of enforcing Black second-class status in
1150-601: A postman in addition to being the owner of the People's Grocery, was named as a conspirator along with McDowell and Stewart. The three men were arrested and jailed pending trial. Around 2:30 a.m. on the morning of March 9, 1892, 75 men wearing black masks took Moss, McDowell, and Stewart from their jail cells at the Shelby County Jail to a Chesapeake and Ohio rail yard one mile north of the city and shot them dead. The Memphis Appeal-Avalanche reports: Just before he
1265-461: A pretext for lynching African Americans who were accused of violating Jim Crow era etiquette or engaged in economic competition with Whites . One study found that there were "4,467 total victims of lynching from 1883 to 1941. Of these victims, 4,027 were men, 99 were women, and 341 were of unidentified gender (although likely male); 3,265 were Black, 1,082 were white, 71 were Mexican or of Mexican descent, 38 were American Indian, 10 were Chinese, and 1
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#17327733544041380-616: A quiet and restrained manner". On the last night of her second tour, the London Anti-Lynching Committee was established – reportedly the first anti-lynching organization in the world. Its founding members included many notable figure including the Duke of Argyll , Sir John Gorst , the Archbishop of Canterbury , Lady Henry Somerset and some twenty Members of Parliament , with activist Florence Balgarnie as
1495-480: A recognized lynching, a definition which became generally accepted by other compilers of the era: 1. There must be legal evidence that a person was killed. 2. That person must have met death illegally. 3. A group of three or more persons must have participated in the killing. 4. The group must have acted under the pretext of service to justice, race, or tradition. Statistics for lynchings have traditionally come from three sources primarily, none of which covered
1610-512: A relation to the concentration of Blacks in parts of the Deep South: where the Black population was concentrated, lynching rates were higher. Such areas also had a particular mix of socioeconomic conditions, with a high dependence on cotton cultivation. Henry Smith , an African American handyman accused of murdering a policeman's daughter, was a noted lynching victim because of the ferocity of
1725-533: A revenge." . . . It is with no pleasure that I have dipped my hands in the corruption here exposed ... 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. – Ida B. Wells (1892) On September 15, 1883, and again on May 4, 1884, a train conductor with the Chesapeake and Ohio Railway ordered Wells to give up her seat in
1840-535: A shared commitment to civil rights. In an interview, Wells's daughter Alfreda said that the two had "like interests" and that their journalist careers were "intertwined". This sort of close working relationship between a wife and husband was unusual at the time, as women often played more traditional domestic roles in a marriage. Lynching in the United States Lynching was the widespread occurrence of extrajudicial killings which began in
1955-461: A sheriff's deputy took electric streetcars to the People's Grocery. The group of white men were met by a barrage of bullets from the People's Grocery, and Shelby County Sheriff Deputy Charley Cole was wounded, as well as civilian Bob Harold. Hundreds of Whites were deputized almost immediately to put down what was perceived by the local Memphis newspapers Commercial and Appeal-Avalanche as an armed rebellion by Black men in Memphis. Thomas Moss,
2070-558: A small Memphis journal, the Evening Star, and she began writing weekly articles for The Living Way newspaper under the pen name "Iola". Articles she wrote under her pen name attacked racist Jim Crow policies. In 1889, she became editor and co-owner with J. L. Fleming of The Free Speech and Headlight , a Black-owned newspaper established by the Reverend Taylor Nightingale (1844–1922) and based at
2185-531: A total of 4,733 persons had died by lynching since 1882. The last lynching recorded by the Tuskegee Institute was that of Emmett Till in 1955. In the 65 years leading up to 1947, at least one lynching was reported every year. The period from 1882 to 1901 saw the height of lynchings, with an average of over 150 each year. 1892 saw the most number of lynchings in a year: 231 or 3.25 per one million people. After 1924 cases steadily declined, with less than 30
2300-667: A town in Waupaca County, Wisconsin Given name [ edit ] Iola Evans (born 1994), English actress Iola Fuller (1906–1993), American writer Iola Gregory (1946–2017), Welsh actress Iola Abraham Ikkidluak (1936–2003), Inuit artist Iola Johnson (born 1950), American news anchor Fictional characters [ edit ] Iola Boylan , character on the television series Mama's Family played by Beverly Archer Iola Leroy , novel by American author Frances Harper Iola Morton , girlfriend of Joe Hardy in
2415-426: A variety of other ways: being shot, burned alive, thrown off a bridge, dragged behind a car, etc. Occasionally, the body parts of the victims were removed and sold as souvenirs. Lynchings were not always fatal; "mock" lynchings, which involved putting a rope around the neck of someone who was suspected of concealing information, was sometimes used to compel people to make "confessions". Lynch mobs varied in size from just
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#17327733544042530-530: A white woman and were jailed pending a grand jury hearing. A physician's subsequent examination of the woman found no evidence of rape or assault. In 1903, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch reported a new, popular make-believe children's game: "The Game of Lynching". "Imaginary mayor gives order not to harm imaginary mob, and an imaginary hanging follows. Fire contributes realistic touch." "It has crowded out baseball", and if it continues, "may deprive of some of its prestige
2645-522: A white woman. The mob responded by putting the noose around the officer's neck as a way of scaring him, and completed killing the other man. Although at the inquest the officer identified eight people who had participated in the lynching, including the former chief of police, the jury determined that the murder had been carried out "by person or persons unknown". In Duluth, Minnesota , on June 15, 1920, three young African American traveling circus workers were lynched after having been accused of having raped
2760-462: A widower with two sons, Ferdinand Barnett and Albert Graham Barnett (1886–1962). Ferdinand Lee Barnett, who lived in Chicago, was a prominent attorney, civil rights activist, and journalist. Like Wells, he spoke widely against lynchings and in support of the civil rights of African Americans. Wells and Barnett had met in 1893, working together on a pamphlet protesting the lack of Black representation at
2875-756: A year. The decreasing rate of yearly lynchings was faster outside the South and for white victims of lynching. Lynching became more of a Southern phenomenon and a racial one that overwhelmingly affected Black victims. There were measurable variations in lynching rates between and within states. According to the Tuskegee Institute, 38% of victims of lynching were accused of murder, 16% of rape, 7% for attempted rape, 6% were accused of felonious assault, 7% for theft, 2% for insult to white people, and 24% were accused of miscellaneous offenses or no offense. In 1940, sociologist Arthur F. Raper investigated one hundred lynchings after 1929 and estimated that approximately one-third of
2990-460: Is a volume of evidence as to the wonderful patience of Southern whites. But we've had enough of it." The Evening Scimitar ( Memphis ) copied the story that same day, and added: "Patience under such circumstances is not a virtue. If the Negroes themselves do not apply the remedy without delay it will be the duty of those whom he has attacked to tie the wretch who utters these calumnies to a stake at
3105-685: Is different from Wikidata All article disambiguation pages All disambiguation pages Ida B. Wells Ida Bell Wells-Barnett (July 16, 1862 – March 25, 1931) was an American investigative journalist , sociologist , educator, and early leader in the civil rights movement . She was one of the founders of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP). Wells dedicated her career to combating prejudice and violence, and advocating for African-American equality—especially that of women. Throughout
3220-472: The 1878 yellow fever epidemic . She got a job teaching and kept the rest of the family together with the help of her grandmother. Later, moving with some of her siblings to Memphis, Tennessee . Soon, Wells co-owned and wrote for the Memphis Free Speech and Headlight newspaper, where her reporting covered incidents of racial segregation and inequality. Eventually, her investigative journalism
3335-677: The American Civil War , southern Whites struggled to maintain their dominance. Secret vigilante and terrorist groups such as the Ku Klux Klan (KKK) instigated extrajudicial assaults and killings in order to discourage freedmen from voting, working, and getting educated. They also sometimes attacked Northerners, teachers, and agents of the Freedmen's Bureau . The magnitude of the extralegal violence which occurred during election campaigns reached epidemic proportions, leading
3450-680: The Beale Street Baptist Church in Memphis. In 1891, Wells was dismissed from her teaching post by the Memphis Board of Education due to her articles criticizing conditions in the Black schools of the region. She was devastated but undaunted, and concentrated her energy on writing articles for The Living Way and the Free Speech and Headlight . In 1889, Thomas Henry Moss, Sr. (1853–1892), an African American, opened People's Grocery , which he co-owned. The store
3565-784: The Civil War . Lizzie was owned by Boling for domestic labor in his home, now the Bolling–Gatewood House . Before the Emancipation Proclamation was issued, both of Wells's parents were enslaved to Boling, and thus Ida was also born enslaved. James Wells built much of the Bolling–Gatewood house, in which Boling lived, and which in March 2002 became the Ida B. Wells–Barnett Museum. The Wells family lived elsewhere on
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3680-480: The Free Speech had been building, particularly with respect to lynchings and imprisonment of Black men suspected of raping white women. A story was published on January 16, 1892, in the Cleveland Gazette , describing a wrongful conviction for a sexual affair between a married white woman, Julia Underwood (née Julie Caroline Wells), and a single Black man, William Offet (1854–1914) of Elyria, Ohio . Offet
3795-411: The Free Speech refuting what she called "that old threadbare lie that Negro men rape white women. If Southern men are not careful, a conclusion might be reached which will be very damaging to the moral reputation of their women." Four days later, on May 25, The Daily Commercial wrote: "The fact that a Black scoundrel [Ida B. Wells] is allowed to live and utter such loathsome and repulsive calumnies
3910-561: The Great Migration ( c. 1916–1970 ) out of the American South, and were often perpetrated to enforce white supremacy and intimidate ethnic minorities along with other acts of racial terrorism. A significant number of lynching victims were accused of murder or attempted murder . Rape , attempted rape, or other forms of sexual assault were the second most common accusation; these accusations were often used as
4025-605: The Hardy Boys novels Topics referred to by the same term [REDACTED] This disambiguation page lists articles associated with the title Iola . If an internal link led you here, you may wish to change the link to point directly to the intended article. Retrieved from " https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Iola&oldid=1239236431 " Categories : Disambiguation pages Disambiguation pages with given-name-holder lists Place name disambiguation pages Hidden categories: Short description
4140-517: The NAACP and other civil rights groups. On November 25, 1915, a group of men led by William J. Simmons burned a cross on top of Stone Mountain , inaugurating the revival of the Ku Klux Klan. The event was attended by 15 charter members and a few aging former members of the original Klan. The Klan and their use of lynching was supported by some public officials like John Trotwood Moore ,
4255-577: The South because they represented economic and political competition—and thus a threat of loss of power—for whites. She aimed to demonstrate the truth about this violence and advocate for measures to stop it. Wells was born into slavery in Holly Springs, Mississippi . She was freed as an infant under the Emancipation Proclamation , when Union Army troops captured Holly Springs. At the age of 16, she lost both her parents and her infant brother in
4370-499: The State Librarian and Archivist of Tennessee from 1919 to 1929. Moore "became one of the South's more strident advocates of lynching". 1919 was one of the worst years for lynching with at least seventy-six people killed in mob or vigilante related violence. Of these, more than eleven African American veterans who had served in the recently completed war were lynched in that year . White supremacist violence culminated in
4485-645: The Tuskegee Institute recorded 1,297 lynchings of white people and 3,446 lynchings of Black people. Lynchings were concentrated in the Cotton Belt ( Mississippi , Georgia , Alabama , Texas , and Louisiana ). However, lynchings of Mexicans were under-counted in the Tuskegee Institute's records, and some of the largest mass lynchings in American history were the Chinese massacre of 1871 and
4600-463: The Tuskegee Institute ). The overwhelming majority of lynching perpetrators never faced justice. White supremacy and all-white juries ensured that perpetrators, even if tried, would not be convicted. Campaigns against lynching gained momentum in the early 20th century, championed by groups such as the NAACP . Some 200 anti-lynching bills were introduced in Congress between the end of the Civil War and
4715-473: The United States ' pre–Civil War South in the 1830s, slowed during the civil rights movement in the 1950s and 1960s, and continued until 1981. Although the victims of lynchings were members of various ethnicities, after roughly 4 million enslaved African Americans were emancipated, they became the primary targets of white Southerners . Lynchings in the U.S. reached their height from the 1890s to
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4830-498: The World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago in 1893. Barnett founded The Chicago Conservator , the first Black newspaper in Chicago, in 1878. Wells began writing for the paper in 1893, later acquired a partial ownership interest, and after marrying Barnett, assumed the role of editor. Wells's marriage to Barnett was a legal union as well as a partnership of ideas and actions. Both were journalists, as well as established activists with
4945-630: The lynching of eleven Italian immigrants in 1891 in New Orleans . During the California Gold Rush , White resentment towards more successful Mexican and Chilean miners resulted in the lynching of at least 160 Mexicans between 1848 and 1860. Members of mobs that participated in lynchings often took photographs of what they had done to their victims in order to spread awareness and fear of their power. Souvenir taking, such as pieces of rope, clothing, branches, and sometimes body parts
5060-412: The " due process " of the U.S. judicial system. He links the decline in lynchings in the early 20th century to "the advent of the modern death penalty", and argues that "legislators renovated the death penalty...out of direct concern for the alternative of mob violence". Between 1901 and 1964, Georgia hanged and electrocuted 609 people. Eighty-two percent of those executed were Black men, even though Georgia
5175-761: The 17th century, in the context of the Wars of the Three Kingdoms in the British Isles and unsettled social and political conditions in the American colonies, lynchings became a frequent form of "mob justice" when the authorities were perceived as untrustworthy. In the United States, during the decades after the Civil War , African Americans were the main victims of racial lynching, but in the American Southwest , Mexican Americans were also
5290-451: The 1890s, Wells documented lynching of African-Americans in the United States in articles and through pamphlets such as Southern Horrors: Lynch Law in all its Phases and The Red Record , which debunked the fallacy frequently voiced by whites at the time that all Black lynching victims were guilty of crimes. Wells exposed the brutality of lynching, and analyzed its sociology, arguing that whites used lynching to terrorize African Americans in
5405-545: The 1920s, and they primarily victimized ethnic minorities . Most of the lynchings occurred in the American South , as the majority of African Americans lived there, but racially motivated lynchings also occurred in the Midwest and border states . In 1891, the largest single mass lynching in American history was perpetrated in New Orleans against Italian immigrants . Lynchings followed African Americans with
5520-453: The 1921 Tulsa race massacre in which the majority-Black Greenwood District was razed to the ground. The NAACP mounted a strong nationwide campaign of protests and public education against The Birth of a Nation . As a result, some city governments prohibited the release of the film. In addition, the NAACP publicized production and helped create audiences for the 1919 releases, The Birth of
5635-799: The 1960s. However, in 2021 there were claims that racist lynchings still happen in the United States, being covered up as suicides. Opponents of legislation often said lynchings prevented murder and rape. As documented by Ida B. Wells , the most prevalent accusation against lynching victims was murder or attempted murder. Rape charges or rumors were present in less than one-third of the lynchings; such charges were often pretexts for lynching Blacks who violated Jim Crow etiquette or engaged in economic competition with Whites. Other common reasons given included arson, theft, assault, and robbery; sexual transgressions ( miscegenation , adultery, cohabitation); "race prejudice", "race hatred", "racial disturbance"; informing on others; "threats against whites"; and violations of
5750-605: The 19th century, as well as financial depression in the 1890s. In the Mississippi bottomlands, for instance, lynchings rose when crops and accounts were supposed to be settled. The late 1800s and early 1900s in the Mississippi Delta showed both frontier influence and actions directed at repressing African Americans. After the Civil War, 90% of the Delta was still undeveloped. Both Whites and Blacks migrated there for
5865-608: The American press, Wells had nevertheless gained extensive recognition and credibility, and an international audience of supporters for her cause. Wells's tours in Britain even influenced public opinion to the extent that British textile manufacturers fought back with economic strategies, imposing a temporary boycott on Southern cotton that pressured southern businessmen to condemn the practice of lynching publicly. On June 27, 1895, in Chicago at Bethel African Methodist Episcopal Church , Wells married attorney Ferdinand Lee Barnett ,
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#17327733544045980-857: The Carolinas, paramilitary chapters of Red Shirts conducted overt violence and disruption of elections. In Louisiana, the White League had numerous chapters; they carried out goals of the Democratic Party to suppress Black voting. Grant's desire to keep Ohio in the Republican aisle and his attorney general's maneuvers led to a failure to support the Mississippi governor with Federal troops. The campaign of terror worked. In Yazoo County, Mississippi , for instance, with an African American population of 12,000, only seven votes were cast for Republicans in 1874. In 1875, Democrats swept into power in
6095-635: The Civil Rights movement, but none passed. Finally, in 2022, 67 years after Emmett Till's killing and the end of the lynching era, the United States Congress passed anti-lynching legislation in the form of the Emmett Till Antilynching Act . Collective violence was a familiar aspect of the early American legal landscape, with group violence in colonial America being usually nonlethal in intention and result. In
6210-684: The Mississippi state legislature. Lynching attacks on African Americans, especially in the South , increased dramatically in the aftermath of Reconstruction. The peak of lynchings occurred in 1892, after White Southern Democrats had regained control of state legislatures. Many incidents were related to economic troubles and competition. At the turn of the 20th century, southern states passed new constitutions or legislation which effectively disenfranchised most Black people and many Poor Whites , established segregation of public facilities by race, and separated Black people from common public life and facilities through Jim Crow laws . The rate of lynchings in
6325-486: The Ohio Governor. Dear Miss Wells: Thank you for your faithful paper on the lynch abomination now generally practiced against colored people in the South. There has been no word equal to it in convincing power. I have spoken, but my word is feeble in comparison ... Brave woman! ... – Frederick Douglass (October 25, 1892) On May 21, 1892, Wells published an editorial in
6440-590: The South before 1930. Conclusions of numerous studies since the mid-20th century have found the following variables affecting the rate of lynchings in the South: "lynchings were more numerous where the African American population was relatively large, the agricultural economy was based predominantly on cotton, the white population was economically stressed, the Democratic Party was stronger, and multiple religious organizations competed for congregants." After
6555-458: The South has been strongly associated with economic strains, although the causal nature of this link is unclear. Low cotton prices, inflation , and economic stress are associated with higher frequencies of lynching. Georgia led the nation in lynchings from 1900 to 1931, with 302 incidents, according to The Tuskegee Institute . However, Florida led the nation in lynchings per capita from 1900 to 1930. Lynchings peaked in many areas when it
6670-400: The South since the Civil War. The Red Record explored the alarmingly high rates of lynching in the United States (which was at a peak from 1880 to 1930). Wells said that during Reconstruction, most Americans outside the South did not realize the growing rate of violence against Black people in the South. She believed that during slavery, white people had not committed as many attacks because of
6785-566: The Southwest, Latinos . Of the 468 lynching victims in Texas between 1885 and 1942, 339 were Black, 77 white, 53 Hispanic, and 1 Native American. There were also Black-on-Black lynchings, with 125 recorded between 1882 and 1903, and there were four incidences of Whites being killed by Black mobs. The rate of Black-on-Black lynchings rose and fell in similar pattern of overall lynchings. There were also over 200 cases of white-on-white lynchings in
6900-575: The U.S. Deeming American criticism of Soviet Union human rights abuses at this time as hypocrisy, the Russians responded with " And you are lynching Negroes ". In Cold War Civil Rights: Race and the Image of American Democracy (2001), the historian Mary L. Dudziak wrote that Soviet communist criticism of racial discrimination and violence in the United States influenced the federal government to support civil rights legislation. Most lynchings ceased by
7015-796: The United States Iola, Colorado , a ghost town Iola, Florida , an unincorporated community Iola, Illinois , a village in Clay County, Illinois Iola, Kansas , a city in Allen County, Kansas Iola, Pennsylvania , a census-designated place in Columbia County, Pennsylvania Iola, Texas , a city in Grimes County, Texas Iola, Wisconsin , a village in Waupaca County, Wisconsin Iola (town), Wisconsin ,
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#17327733544047130-646: The attack against him and the huge crowd that gathered. He was lynched at Paris, Texas , in 1893 for killing Myrtle Vance, the three-year-old daughter of a Texas policeman, after the policeman had assaulted Smith. Smith was not tried in a court of law. A large crowd followed the lynching, as was common then in the style of public executions. Henry Smith was fastened to a wooden platform, tortured for 50 minutes by red-hot iron brands, and burned alive while more than 10,000 spectators cheered. Fewer than one percent of lynch mob participants were ever convicted by local courts and they were seldom prosecuted or brought to trial. By
7245-507: The attention of Northerners who knew little about these mob murders or accepted the common explanation that Black men deserved this fate. According to the Equal Justice Initiative , 4,084 African Americans were murdered in the South , alone, between 1877 and 1950, of which, 25 percent were accused of sexual assault and nearly 30 percent, murder. Generally southern states and white juries refused to indict any perpetrators for lynching, although they were frequently known and sometimes shown in
7360-434: The color line ("attending white girl", "proposals to white woman"). Although the rhetoric which surrounded lynchings frequently suggested that they were carried out in order to protect the virtue and safety of white women, the actions basically arose out of white attempts to maintain domination in a rapidly changing society and their fears of social change. Mobs usually alleged crimes for which they lynched Black people. In
7475-432: The conductor and two men dragged her out of the car. Wells gained publicity in Memphis when she wrote a newspaper article for The Living Way , a Black church weekly, about her treatment on the train. In Memphis, she hired an African-American attorney to sue the railroad. When her lawyer was paid off by the railroad, she hired a white attorney. Wells won her case on December 24, 1884, when the local circuit court granted her
7590-652: The definitions which are given to specific incidents by those sources. The Tuskegee Institute has recorded the lynchings of 3,446 Blacks and the lynchings of 1,297 Whites, all of which occurred between 1882 and 1968, with the peak occurring in the 1890s, at a time of economic stress in the South and increasing political suppression of Blacks. A six-year study published in 2017 by the Equal Justice Initiative found that 4,084 Black men, women, and children fell victim to "racial terror lynchings" in twelve Southern states between 1877 and 1950, besides 300 that took place in other states. During this period, Mississippi's 654 lynchings led
7705-417: The dynamics of segregation. She found sympathetic audiences in Britain, already shocked by reports of lynching in America. Wells had been invited for her first British speaking tour by Catherine Impey and Isabella Fyvie Mayo . Impey, a Quaker abolitionist who published the journal Anti-Caste , had attended several of Wells's lectures while traveling in America. Mayo was a writer and poet who wrote under
7820-592: The economic labor value of slaves. Wells noted that, since slavery time, "ten thousand Negroes have been killed in cold blood, [through lynching] without the formality of judicial trial and legal execution". Frederick Douglass had written an article noting three eras of "Southern barbarism" and the excuses that whites claimed in each period. Wells explored these in her The Red Record: Wells collected 14 pages of statistics related to lynching cases committed from 1892 to 1895; she also included pages of graphic accounts detailing specific lynchings. She wrote that her data
7935-506: The editor of the Daily Inter Ocean , a Republican newspaper in Chicago. It was the only major white paper that persistently denounced lynching. After she told Nixon about her planned tour, he asked her to write for the newspaper while in England. She was the first African-American woman to be a paid correspondent for a mainstream white newspaper. Wells toured England , Scotland , with Eliza Wigham in attendance and Wales for two months, addressing audiences of thousands, and rallying
8050-528: The entire historical time period of lynching in the United States. Before 1882, no contemporaneous statistics were assembled on a national level. In 1882, the Chicago Tribune began to systematically tabulate lynchings nationally. In 1908, the Tuskegee Institute began a systematic collection of lynching reports under the direction of Monroe Work at its Department of Records, drawn primarily from newspaper reports. Monroe Work published his first independent tabulations in 1910, although his report also went back to
8165-455: The extreme violence perpetrated upon Black Americans, Wells concluded that armed resistance was a reasonable and effective means to defend against lynching. She said, a " Winchester rifle should have a place of honor in every black home." Wells travelled twice to Britain in her campaign against lynching, the first time in 1893 and the second in 1894 in effort to gain the support of a powerful white nation such as Britain to shame and sanction
8280-475: The fight and rushed outside to defend the young Harris from the adult Hurst as people in the neighborhood gathered into what quickly became a "racially charged mob". The white grocer Barrett returned the following day, March 3, 1892, to the People's Grocery with a Shelby County Sheriff's Deputy, looking for William Stewart. Calvin McDowell, who greeted Barrett, indicated that Stewart was not present, but Barrett
8395-501: The first-class ladies car and move to the smoking car, which was already crowded with other passengers. In 1883, the United States Supreme Court had ruled against the federal Civil Rights Act of 1875 (which had banned racial discrimination in public accommodations). This verdict supported railroad companies that chose to racially segregate their passengers. When Wells refused to give up her seat on September 15,
8510-480: The focus of violence in Louisiana when they started arriving in greater numbers, their deaths were not tabulated separately from Whites. In earlier years, Whites who were subject to lynching were often targeted because of suspected political activities or support of freedmen, but they were generally considered members of the community in a way new immigrants were not. Other victims included white immigrants, and, in
8625-487: The game of football". D. W. Griffith 's 1915 film, The Birth of a Nation , glorified the original Ku Klux Klan as protecting white southern women during Reconstruction, which he portrayed as a time of violence and corruption , following the Dunning School 's interpretation of history. The film aroused great controversy. It was popular among Whites nationwide, but it was protested against by Black activists,
8740-409: The higher court's decision revealed her strong convictions on civil rights and religious faith, as she responded: "I felt so disappointed because I had hoped such great things from my suit for my people. ... O God, is there no ... justice in this land for us?" While continuing to teach elementary school, Wells became increasingly active as a journalist and writer. She accepted an editorial position for
8855-514: The historian William Gillette to label it " guerrilla warfare ", and historian Thomas E. Smith to understand it as a form of " colonial violence". The lynchers sometimes murdered their victims, but sometimes whipped or physically assaulted them to remind them of their former status as slaves. Often night-time raids of African American homes were made in order to confiscate firearms. Lynchings to prevent freedmen and their allies from voting and bearing arms were extralegal ways of trying to enforce
8970-456: The honorary secretary. As a result of her two lecture tours in Britain, Wells received significant coverage in the British and American press. Many of the articles published by the latter at the time of her return to the United States were hostile personal critiques, rather than reports of her anti-lynching positions and beliefs. The New York Times , for example, called her "a slanderous and nasty-minded Mulatress ". Despite these attacks from
9085-437: The intersection of Main and Madison Sts., brand him in the forehead with a hot iron and perform upon him a surgical operation with a pair of tailor's shears." A white mob ransacked the Free Speech office, destroying the building and its contents. James L. Fleming, co-owner with Wells and business manager, was forced to flee Memphis; and, reportedly, the trains were being watched for Wells's return. Creditors took possession of
9200-463: The late 19th century, however, journalist Ida B. Wells showed that many presumed crimes were either exaggerated or had not even occurred. The ideology behind lynching, directly connected to the denial of political and social equality, was stated forthrightly in 1900 by United States Senator Benjamin Tillman , who was previously governor of South Carolina : We of the South have never recognized
9315-542: The late 19th century, trial juries in most of the southern United States were all white because African Americans had been disenfranchised, and only registered voters could serve as jurors. Often juries never let the matter go past the inquest. Such cases happened in the North as well. In 1892, a police officer in Port Jervis, New York , tried to stop the lynching of a Black man who had been wrongfully accused of assaulting
9430-459: The lynchings which occurred in all of the Southern states. The records of Tuskegee Institute remain the single most complete source of statistics and records on this crime since 1882 for all states, although modern research has illuminated new incidents in studies focused on specific states in isolation. As of 1959, which was the last time that Tuskegee Institute's annual report was published,
9545-594: The mid-1870s onward, violence rose as insurgent paramilitary groups in the Deep South worked to suppress Black voting and turn Republicans out of office. In Louisiana, the Carolinas, and Florida especially, the Democratic Party relied on paramilitary "White Line" groups, such as the White Camelia , White League and Red Shirts to terrorize, intimidate and assassinate African-American and white Republicans in an organized drive to regain power. In Mississippi and
9660-578: The name of Edward Garrett. Both women had read of the particularly gruesome mob murder of Henry Smith in Texas and wanted to organize a speaking tour to call attention to American lynchings. Impey and Mayo asked Frederick Douglass to make the trip, but he declined, citing his age and health. He then suggested Wells, who enthusiastically accepted the invitation. In 1894, before leaving the US for her second visit to Great Britain, Wells called on William Penn Nixon ,
9775-510: The new social order which was constructed under Jim Crow; Whites acted together, reinforcing their collective identity along with the unequal status of Blacks through these group acts of violence. Lynchings were also (in part) intended as a voter suppression tool. A 2019 study found that lynchings occurred more frequently in proximity to elections, in particular in areas where the Democratic Party faced challenges. Tuskegee Institute, now Tuskegee University , defined conditions that constituted
9890-602: The office and sold the assets of the Free Speech. Wells had been out of town, vacationing in Manhattan ; she never returned to Memphis. A "committee" of white businessmen, reportedly from the Cotton Exchange , located Rev. Nightingale and, although he had sold his interest to Wells and Fleming in 1891, assaulted him and forced him at gunpoint to sign a letter retracting the May 21 editorial. Wells subsequently accepted
10005-493: The photographs being made more frequently of such events. Despite Wells's attempt to gain support among white Americans against mob murders, she believed that her campaign could not overturn the economic interests whites had in using lynching as an instrument to maintain Southern order and discourage Black economic ventures. Ultimately, Wells concluded that appealing to reason and compassion would not succeed in gaining criminalization of lynching by Southern whites. In response to
10120-437: The phrase "poor, blind Afro-American Sampsons" to denote Black men as victims of "white Delilahs ". The Biblical " Samson ", in the vernacular of the day, came from Longfellow 's 1865 poem, " The Warning ", containing the line: "There is a poor, blind Samson in the land ... " To explain the metaphor "Sampson", John Elliott Cairnes , an Irish political economist , in his 1865 article about Black suffrage , wrote that Longfellow
10235-713: The previous system of social dominance and the Black Codes , which had been invalidated by the 14th and 15th Amendments in 1868 and 1870. Journalist, educator, and civil rights leader, Ida B. Wells commented in an 1892 pamphlet she published called Southern Horrors: Lynch Law in All Its Phases that, "The only times an Afro-American who was assaulted got away has been when he had a gun and used it in self-defense." A study published in August 2022 by researchers from Clemson University has stated that, "...rates of Black lynching decreased with greater Black firearm access..." From
10350-575: The property. Ground plans on display in the Ida B. Wells–Barnett Museum identify shacks behind the house as the residence of the Wells family. After emancipation , James became a trustee of the newly established Shaw University (now Rust College ) in Holly Springs. He refused to vote for Democratic candidates during the period of Reconstruction , became a member of the Loyal League , and
10465-494: The racist practices of the United States. She and her supporters in America saw these tours as an opportunity for her to reach larger, white audiences with her anti-lynching campaign, something she had been unable to accomplish in America. In these travels, Wells notes that her own transatlantic voyages in themselves held a powerful cultural context given the histories of the Middle Passage , and black female identity within
10580-537: The right of the negro to govern white men, and we never will. We have never believed him to be the equal of the white man, and we will not submit to his gratifying his lust on our wives and daughters without lynching him. Lynchings declined briefly after White supremacists, the so-called " Redeemers ", took over the governments of the southern states in the 1870s. By the end of the 19th century, with struggles over labor and disenfranchisement, and continuing agricultural depression, lynchings rose again. Between 1882 and 1968,
10695-502: The society. Black economic progress was a contemporary issue in the South, and in many states whites worked to suppress Black progress. In this period at the turn of the century, Southern states, starting with Mississippi in 1890, passed laws and/or new constitutions to disenfranchise most Black people and many poor white people through use of poll taxes , literacy tests and other devices. Wells, in Southern Horrors, adopted
10810-434: The starting year 1882. Finally, in 1912, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People started an independent record of lynchings. The numbers of lynchings from each source vary slightly, with the Tuskegee Institute's figures being considered "conservative" by some historians. Based on the source, the numbers vary depending on the sources which are cited, the years which are considered by those sources, and
10925-482: The targets of lynching as well. At the first recorded lynching, in St. Louis in 1835, a Black man named McIntosh (who killed a deputy sheriff while being taken to jail) was captured, chained to a tree, and burned to death on a corner lot downtown in front of a crowd of over 1,000 people. According to historian Michael J. Pfeifer, the prevalence of lynchings in post–Civil War America reflected people's lack of confidence in
11040-522: The time and was spared. Following the funerals of her parents and brother, friends and relatives decided that the five remaining Wells children should be separated and sent to foster homes. Wells resisted this proposition. To keep her younger siblings together as a family, she found work as a teacher in a rural Black elementary school outside Holly Springs. Her paternal grandmother, Peggy Wells (née Peggy Cheers; 1814–1887), along with other friends and relatives, stayed with her siblings and cared for them during
11155-528: The victims were falsely accused. Tuskegee Institute's method of categorizing most lynching victims as either Black or white in publications and data summaries meant that the murders of some minority and immigrant groups were obscured. In the West, for instance, Mexican, Native Americans, and Chinese were more frequent targets of lynchings than were African Americans, but their deaths were included among those of other Whites. Similarly, although Italian immigrants were
11270-631: The week while Wells was teaching. About two years after Wells's grandmother Peggy had a stroke and her sister Eugenia died, Wells and her two youngest sisters moved to Memphis to live with an aunt, Fanny Butler ( née Fanny Wells; 1837–1908), in 1883. Memphis is about 56 miles (90 km) from Holly Springs. Soon after moving to Memphis , Tennessee , Wells was hired in Woodstock by the Shelby County school system. During her summer vacations, she attended summer sessions at Fisk University ,
11385-454: Was 959. Of this number 102 were white, while the colored victims numbered 857. No other nation, civilized or savage, burns its criminals; only under that Stars and Stripes is the human holocaust possible. Twenty-eight human beings burned at the stake, one of them a woman and two of them children, is the awful indictment against American civilization—the gruesome tribute which the nation pays to the color line. Wells's anti-lynching commentaries in
11500-402: Was Japanese." A common perception of lynchings in the U.S. is that they were only hangings , due to the public visibility of the location, which made it easier for photographers to photograph the victims. Some lynchings were professionally photographed and then the photos were sold as postcards , which became popular souvenirs in parts of the United States. Lynching victims were also killed in
11615-556: Was born to an enslaved woman named Peggy and Peggy's white enslaver, thus he was enslaved under the doctrine of partus sequitur ventrem . When James was 18, his father brought him to Holly Springs, hiring him out as a carpenter's apprentice to architect Spires Boling , with James's wages going to his enslaver. One of ten children born on a plantation in Virginia, Lizzie was abducted and trafficked away from her family and siblings and tried without success to locate her family following
11730-479: Was carried nationally in Black-owned newspapers . Subjected to continued threats and criminal violence, including when a white mob destroyed her newspaper office and presses, Wells left Memphis for Chicago , Illinois . She married Ferdinand L. Barnett in 1895 and had a family while continuing her work writing, speaking, and organizing for civil rights and the women's movement for the rest of her life. Wells
11845-432: Was convicted of rape and served four years of a 15-year sentence, despite his sworn denial of rape. Underwood's husband, Rev. Isaac T. Underwood – after she confessed to him that she had lied two years later – diligently worked to get Offet out of the penitentiary. After hiring an influential Pittsburgh attorney, Thomas Harlan Baird Patterson (1844–1907), Rev. Underwood prevailed, Offet was released and subsequently pardoned by
11960-409: Was dissatisfied with the response and was frustrated that the People's Grocery was competing with his store. Angry about the previous day's mêlée , Barrett responded that "Blacks were thieves" and hit McDowell with a pistol. McDowell wrestled the gun away and fired at Barrett—missing narrowly. McDowell was later arrested but subsequently released. On March 5, 1892, a group of six white men including
12075-588: Was killed, Moss said to the mob: "Tell my people to go west, there is no justice here." After the lynching of her friends, Wells wrote in Free Speech and Headlight urging Blacks to leave Memphis altogether: There is, therefore, only one thing left to do; save our money and leave a town which will neither protect our lives and property, nor give us a fair trial in the courts, but takes us out and murders us in cold blood when accused by white persons. The event led Wells to begin investigating lynchings. She began to interview people associated with lynchings, including
12190-632: Was known as a "race man" for his involvement in politics and his commitment to the Republican Party . He founded a successful carpentry business in Holly Springs in 1867, and his wife Lizzie became known as a "famous cook". Ida B. Wells was one of their eight children, and she enrolled in Shaw University. In September 1878, both of Ida's parents died during a yellow fever epidemic that also claimed one of her brothers. Wells had been visiting her grandmother's farm near Holly Springs at
12305-401: Was located in a South Memphis neighborhood nicknamed "The Curve". Wells was close to Moss and his family, having stood as godmother to his first child, Maurine E. Moss (1891–1971). Moss's store did well and competed with a white-owned grocery store across the street, Barrett's Grocery, owned by William Russell Barrett (1854–1920). On March 2, 1892, a young Black male youth named Armour Harris
12420-703: Was majority white. Pfeifer also cited "the modern, racialized excesses of urban police forces in the twentieth century and after" as bearing characteristics of lynchings. A major motive for lynchings, particularly in the South, was white society's efforts to maintain white supremacy after the emancipation of enslaved people following the American Civil War . Lynchings punished perceived violations of customs, later institutionalized as Jim Crow laws , which mandated racial segregation of Whites and Blacks, and second-class status for Blacks. A 2017 paper found that more racially segregated counties were more likely to be places where Whites conducted lynchings. Lynchings emphasized
12535-543: Was not uncommon. Some of those photographs were published and sold as postcards. In 2000, James Allen published a collection of 145 lynching photos in book form as well as online, with written words and video to accompany the images. The murders reflected the tensions of labor and social changes, as the Whites imposed Jim Crow rules, legal segregation and white supremacy. The lynchings were also an indicator of long economic stress due to falling cotton prices through much of
12650-486: Was outspoken regarding her beliefs as a Black female activist and faced regular public disapproval, sometimes including from other leaders within the civil rights movement and the women's suffrage movement . She was active in women's rights and the women's suffrage movement, establishing several notable women's organizations. A skilled and persuasive speaker, Wells traveled nationally and internationally on lecture tours. Wells died on March 25, 1931, in Chicago, and in 2020
12765-411: Was playing a game of marbles with a young white male youth named Cornelius Hurst in front of the People's Grocery. The two male youths got into an argument during the game, then began to fight. As the Black youth, Harris, seemed to be winning the fight, the father of Cornelius Hurst intervened and began to "thrash" Harris. The People's Grocery employees William Stewart and Calvin R. McDowell (1870–1892) saw
12880-481: Was posthumously honored with a Pulitzer Prize special citation "for her outstanding and courageous reporting on the horrific and vicious violence against African Americans during the era of lynching." Ida Bell Wells was born on the Boling Farm near Holly Springs, Mississippi . Born on July 16, 1862, Ida Wells was the first child of James Madison Wells (1840–1878) and Elizabeth "Lizzie" (Warrenton). James Wells
12995-583: Was prophesizing; to wit: in "the long-impending struggle for Americans following the Civil War, [he, Longfellow] could see in the Negro only an instrument of vengeance, and a cause of ruin". After conducting further research, Wells published The Red Record, in 1895. This 100-page pamphlet was a sociological investigation of lynching in the United States since the Emancipation Proclamation of 1863. It also covered Black people's struggles in
13110-547: Was taken from articles by white correspondents, white press bureaus, and white newspapers. Her delivery of these statistics did not simply reduce the murders to numbers, Wells strategically paired the data with descriptive accounts in a way that helped her audience conceptualize the scale of the injustice. This powerful quantification captivated Black and White audiences about the horrors of lynching, through both her circulated works and public oration. Southern Horrors and The Red Record ' s documentation of lynchings captured
13225-430: Was time for landowners to settle accounts with sharecroppers . The frequency of lynchings rose during years of poor economy and low prices for cotton, demonstrating that more than social tensions generated the catalysts for mob action against the underclass. Researchers have studied various models to determine what motivated lynchings. One study of lynching rates of Blacks in Southern counties between 1889 and 1931 found
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