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. WELLSVirtue knows no color line.
More Ida B. Wells Quotes
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The South resented giving the Afro-American his freedom, the ballot box and the Civil Rights Law.
IDA B. WELLS -
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 -
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.
IDA B. WELLS -
There must always be a remedy for wrong and injustice if we only know how to find it.
IDA B. WELLS -
In 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. WELLS -
I am only a mouthpiece through which to tell the story of lynching and I have told it so often that I know it by heart. I do not have to embellish; it makes its own way.
IDA B. WELLS -
I came home every Friday afternoon, riding the six miles on the back of a big mule. I spent Saturday and Sunday washing and ironing and cooking for the children and went back to my country school on Sunday afternoon.
IDA B. WELLS -
The appetite grows for what it feeds on.
IDA B. WELLS -
The Afro-American is not a bestial race. If this work can contribute in any way towards proving this, and at the same time arouse the conscience of the American people to a demand for justice to every citizen, and punishment by law for the lawless,
IDA B. WELLS -
The way to right wrongs is to turn the light of truth upon them.
IDA B. WELLS -
Lynching is color line murder.
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
IDA B. WELLS -
Brave men do not gather by thousands to torture and murder a single individual, so gagged and bound he cannot make even feeble resistance or defense.
IDA B. WELLS -
I had already determined to sell my life as dearly as possible if attacked. I felt if I could take one lyncher with me, this would even up the score a little bit.
IDA B. WELLS -
The people must know before they can act, and there is no educator to compare with the press.
IDA B. WELLS -
In slave times the Negro was kept subservient and submissive by the frequency and severity of the scourging, but, with freedom, a new system of intimidation came into vogue; the Negro was not only whipped and scourged; he was killed.
IDA B. WELLS -
Those who commit the murders write the reports.
IDA B. WELLS -
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 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. WELLS -
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. WELLS -
The negro has suffered far more from the commission of this crime against the women of his race by white men than the white race has ever suffered through his crimes.
IDA B. WELLS -
The miscegenation laws of the South only operate against the legitimate union of the races; they leave the white man free to seduce all the colored girls he can, but it is death to the colored man who yields to the force and advances of a similar attraction in white women.
IDA B. WELLS -
The emergency no longer existing, lynching gradually disappeared from the West.
IDA B. WELLS -
There is nothing we can do about the lynching now, as we are out-numbered and without arms.
IDA B. WELLS -
I felt that one had better die fighting against injustice than to die like a dog or rat in a trap.
IDA B. WELLS -
A Winchester rifle should have a place of honor in every black home.
IDA B. WELLS