I shall feel I have done my race a service. Other considerations are of minor importance.
IDA B. WELLSI shall feel I have done my race a service. Other considerations are of minor importance.
IDA B. WELLSI felt that one had better die fighting against injustice than to die like a dog or rat in a trap.
IDA B. WELLSThe city of Memphis has demonstrated that neither character nor standing avails the Negro if he dares to protect himself against the white man or become his rival.
IDA B. WELLSLynching is color line murder.
IDA B. WELLSThe white man’s victory soon became complete by fraud, violence, intimidation and murder.
IDA B. WELLSThe doors of churches, hotels, concert halls and reading rooms are alike closed against the Negro as a man, but every place is open to him as a servant.
IDA B. WELLSThere is nothing we can do about the lynching now, as we are out-numbered and without arms.
IDA B. WELLSIt is extremely rough to follow through with my goals, but I felt a responsibility to show the world what the African Americans are facing through this rough patch.
IDA B. WELLSIn fact, for all kinds of offenses – and, for no offenses – from murders to misdemeanors, men and women are put to death without judge or jury; so that, although the political excuse was no longer necessary, the wholesale murder of human beings went on just the same.
IDA B. WELLSWhite men lynch the offending Afro-American, not because he is a despoiler of virtue, but because he succumbs to the smiles of white women.
IDA B. WELLSThe way to right wrongs is to turn the light of truth upon them.
IDA B. WELLSWhen the white man who is always the aggressor knows he runs as great a risk of biting the dust every time his Afro-American victim does, he will have greater respect for Afro-American life.
IDA B. WELLSThe nineteenth century lynching mob cuts off ears, toes, and fingers, strips off flesh, and distributes portions of the body as souvenirs among the crowd.
IDA B. WELLSThe South is brutalized to a degree not realized by its own inhabitants, and the very foundation of government, law and order, are imperilled.
IDA B. WELLSVirtue knows no color line.
IDA B. WELLSWhat becomes a crime deserving capital punishment when the tables are turned is a matter of small moment when the negro woman is the accusing party.
IDA B. WELLS