Ida B. Wells during the 1890`s in Memphis, Tennessee started her journey towards equality. With her journalist career changed society’s manner of viewing African Americans. She fought against the unequal treatment of African Americans, spoke when she felt others settled for less than they deserved, wrote to inform people of injustice events, went against what society expected of her, and gained the attention from everyone surrounding her. Americans viewed African Americans as inferiors even after they were no longer considered slaves. When her good friend, Thomas Moss opened a grocery store, he intimidated other white business men. This caused the businessmen to make any excuse to intrude the grocery store. After being threatened Moss and other African Americans prepared to defend the store. The shooting among both groups was printed in the newspaper, but the story was twisted. It was said that the African Americans were hiding criminals and attacked the Americans. Since no evidence was found, the judge illegally ordered to shoot any African American that was making trouble. The men were dragged out, tortured and shot (Bay 84). After this incident, Wells decided to bring attention to lynching. Lynching is an act in which a crowd murders an individual without a fair trial (Lisandrelli 39). Wells made it her objective to cease lynching. She started producing pamphlets and wrote about it in her newspaper Free Speech. Once the information got out that lynching was a large conflict in America, it made its way around the world. The information captivated the attention of two human rights activist from Scotland and England. She was invited to England where she spoke about lynching in America. Once the Americans saw the interest the Brit... ... middle of paper ... ...d Free Speech and distributed the message that if Wells returned to town she would be hanged. By destroying the only thing Wells had at the time, it encouraged her to keep telling the truth about the injustices being committed against African Americans. President of the Missouri Press Association wrote a letter attacking Wells along with African American women (Lisandrelli 62). He referred to them as prostitutes, liars, thieves, and lawbreakers. Once other African American women`s clubs heard about this a conference was held, where the author of the article was denounced and Wells was praised. Using words Ida B. Wells impacted the world. Her diligent attitude towards discovering the truth made many other`s lives simpler. Wells fought for those that had no one to help them. Through writing she brought attention to lynching, unfair trials, and unequal opportunities.
Interestingly, the book does not focus solely on the Georgia lynching, but delves into the actual study of the word lynching which was coined by legendary judge Charles B Lynch of Virginia to indicate extra-legal justice meted out to those in the frontier where the rule of law was largely absent. In fact, Wexler continues to analyse how the term lynching began to be used to describe mob violence in the 19th century, when the victim was deemed to have been guilty before being tried by due process in a court of law.
The hypocrisy and double standard that allowed whites to bring harm to blacks without fear of any repercussions had existed for years before the murder Tyson wrote about occurred in May of 1970 (Tyson 2004, 1). Lynching of black men was common place in the south as Billie Holiday sang her song “Strange Fruit” and the eyes of justice looked the other way. On the other side of the coin, justice was brought swiftly to those blacks who stepped out of line and brought harm to the white race. Take for instance Nate Turner, the slave who led a rebellion against whites. Even the Teel’s brought their own form of justice to Henry Marrow because he “said something” to one of their white wives (1).
The history of The Black Civil Rights Movement in the United States is a fascinating account of a group of human beings, forcibly taken from their homeland, brought to a strange new continent, and forced to endure countless inhuman atrocities. Forced into a life of involuntary servitude to white slave owners, African Americans were to face an uphill battle for many years to come. Who would face that battle? To say the fight for black civil rights "was a grassroots movement of ordinary people who accomplished extraordinary things" would be an understatement. Countless people made it their life's work to see the progression of civil rights in America. People like W.E.B. DuBois, Marcus Garvey, A Phillip Randolph, Eleanor Roosevelt, and many others contributed to the fight although it would take ordinary people as well to lead the way in the fight for civil rights. This paper will focus on two people whose intelligence and bravery influenced future generations of civil rights organizers and crusaders. Ida B.Wells and Mary Mcleod Bethune were two African American women whose tenacity and influence would define the term "ordinary to extraordinary".
Ida B. Wells was born into slavery, and lived in Holly Springs Mississippi. She was later freed, and learned from her parents what it meant to be a political activist. By 1891, Wells was the owner of the newspaper, Free Speech, and was reporting on the horrors that were occurring in the south. Wells, along with other people of the African American activist community were particularly horrified about the lynching’s that were occurring in the south. As a response to the lynching that was occurring, and other violent acts that the African American community was dealing with Wells wrote three pamphlets: Southern Horrors, The Red Record, and Mob Brutality. Muckraking and investigative journalism can be seen throughout these pamphlets, as well as Wells intent to persuade the African American community, and certain members of the white community to take a stand against the crime of lynching. Wells’ writings are an effective historical text, because she serves as a voice to an underrepresented African American community.
Throughout history, the black woman has always had a multitude of responsibilities thrust upon her shoulders. This was never truer than for southern black women in the period between 1865 and 1885. In this span of twenty years, these women were responsible for their children, their husbands, supporting their families, their fight for freedom as black citizens and as women, their sexual freedom, and various other issues that impacted their lives. All of these aspects of the black woman’s life defined who she was. Each of her experiences and battles shaped the life that she lived, and the way she was perceived by the outside world.
Throughout Ida B. Wells’ diary, she has many struggles, ups and downs. Her diary takes us from her young promiscuous days as a young woman with her various friends, callers, and not knowing who she really was to basically a travel log as a married lady who was well set, owned her own news paper, and a spokesman for blacks all across America. During these years, she goes through long stretches of depression and happiness. In her struggles of depression, Wells very much struggles with three particular concepts the most. Wells has big problems her identity, the way black women were treated, and stereotypes of blacks.
Ida B. Wells and James Baldwin were two activists who suggested strategies that advocated for social change. Although they were active during different centuries, they both utilized their writing, describing their experiences to promote equality in the communities they were a part of. Highlighting Wells’ and Baldwin’s experiences and arguments is important to discuss because they were key figures during the fight for civil rights. Although both civil rights activists utilized their creative writing ability to fight for justice, their writing types transcended different outcomes. In other words, Wells and Baldwin describes their encounters with racism and discrimination in several ways.
Ida Bell Wells, more commonly known as Ida B. Wells, was born in Holly Springs Mississippi on the 16th of July in 1862. Ida was raised by her mother Lizzie Wells and her father James Wells. She was born into slavery as the oldest of eight children in the family. Both Ida’s parents were enslaved during the Civil War but after the war they became active in the Republican Party during the Reconstruction era. Ida’s father, James, was also involved in the Freedman’s Aid Society (www.biography.com). He also helped to start Shaw University. Shaw University was a university for the newly freed slaves to attend, it was also where Ida received the majority of her schooling. However, Ida received little schooling because she was forced to take care of her other siblings after her parents and one of her siblings passed away due to Yellow Fever. Ida became a teacher at the age of 16 as a way to make money for her and her siblings. Eventually Ida and all her sisters moved to Memphis, Tennessee, to live with their aunt, leaving all their brothers behind to continue working. In Memphis Ida began to stand up for the rights of African Americans and women.
Ida B. Wells profession was being a journalist. Ida B. Wells had led a crusade against lynching in the 1890s. She was an abolist and feminist who strove for justice. She had been born on July 16th, 1862. She died the day of March 25, 1931.
Wells. In May 1892, whites envied three of her friends for opening a successful grocery store. Her friends were arrested, then taken from jail, and lynched. Lynching was a very public act that differs from ordinary murders or assaults because it is a killing that is against the boundaries of due process; the legal requirement that all states must respect all legal rights owed to a person. This horrific execution took place every other day in the 1890’s, but the mob killing of the innocent three men who owned the grocery store was extremely frightening. In protest 2000 black residence left Memphis that summer and headed West for Oklahoma, but Ida B Wells stayed and began her own research on lynching. Her editorials in the “Memphis Free Speech and Headlight” confronted the Lynch Law; which was said to be in place to protect white women, even though they leave white men free to seduce all the colored girls he can, yet black men were being lynched for having consensual relations with white women. Ida B. Wells states, “No one believes the old thread lies that Negro men assault white women, and if the southern white men are not careful they will overreach themselves and a conclusion will be reached which will be very damaging to the moral reputation of their women”. Whites were outraged with her words and Wells was fortunately away in the East when a mob came looking for her, they trashed the offices
Wells was a fearless anti-lynching crusader, women’s rights advocate, journalist, and speaker. After her parents passed away she became a teacher and received a job to teach at a nearby school. With this job she was able to support the needs of her siblings. In 1844 in Memphis, Tennessee, she was asked by the conductor of the Chesapeake and Ohio Railroad Company to give up her seat on the train to a white man. Wells refused, but was forcefully removed from the train and all the white passengers applauded. Wells was angered by this and sued the company and won her case in the local courts; the local court appealed to the Supreme Court of Tennessee. The Supreme Court reversed the court’s ruling. In Chicago, she helped to develop numerous African American women and reform organizations. Wells still remained hard-working in her anti-lynching crusade by ...
Wells was born into slavery in Holly Springs, Mississippi. Her father, James Wells, was a carpenter and her mother was a cook. After the Civil War her parents became politically active. Her father was known as “race'; man, a term given to African Americans involved in the leadership of the community. He was a local businessman, a mason, and a member of the Board of Trustees of Shaw University. Both parents provided Ida with strong role models. They worked hard and held places of respect in the community as forward-looking people. James and Elizabeth (mother) Wells instilled their daughter a keen sense of duty to God, family, and community.
One of the first encounters that supports the feminist movement of lack of involvement of “black” women, is when Ida B. Wells, a African American woman, arrived at Alice’s office to confront her on the idea of “black” women marching at the back of the women march. Alice proclaimed, “the suffrage women will withdraw from the campaign if negro women marched with the same ranks.“ Ida’s response, “who is we? women or just “white” women?” Incidentially this created a uncomfortable feeling of
On May 16th, 1838, Lucretia Mott held the second Anti-Slavery Convention of American Women. The women of this convention were fighting to end slavery in Washington, D.C. and also wanted to boycott goods created by slave labor. During the women’s protest, they approached a riot. The crowd of 17,000 people that they were facing explained that if the blacks were freed there would be fewer jobs for everyone else in the state. It would also bring wages down even more from what they were already at. During this time period, majority of the people were factory workers who feared losing their jobs. They believed that African Americans were not worth losing their jobs over, so they wanted them to be kept as slaves. However, Lucretia did not feel as though this was right. She believed that they deserve to be able to work and be free just as much as everyone else in the community. The mob of people threated the women that were included in the convention with violence, and Lucretia was not going to stand for that. Each white woman linked arms with an African American woman and walked out of the building. After walking out of the building, the doors were locked...