Our country’s national crime is lynching. It is not the creature of an hour, the sudden outburst of uncontrolled fury, or the unspeakable brutality of an insane mob.
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.
More Ida B. Wells Quotes
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The way to right wrongs is to turn the light of truth upon them.
IDA B. WELLS -
The appeal to the white man’s pocket has ever been more effectual than all the appeals ever made to his conscience.
IDA B. WELLS -
The emergency no longer existing, lynching gradually disappeared from the West.
IDA B. WELLS -
Thus lynch law held sway in the far West until civilization spread into the Territories and the orderly processes of law took its place.
IDA B. WELLS -
No nation, savage or civilized, save only the United States of America, has confessed its inability to protect its women save by hanging, shooting, and burning alleged offenders
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The 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.
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There must always be a remedy for wrong and injustice if we only know how to find it.
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White men lynch the offending Afro-American, not because he is a despoiler of virtue, but because he succumbs to the smiles of white women.
IDA B. WELLS -
What 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.
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The appetite grows for what it feeds on.
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Lynching is color line murder.
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The people must know before they can act, and there is no educator to compare with the press.
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The more the Afro-American yields and cringes and begs, the more he has to do so, the more he is insulted, outraged and lynched.
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I honestly believe I am the only woman in the United States who ever traveled throughout the country with a nursing baby to make political speeches.
IDA B. WELLS -
The 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. WELLS