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. WELLSBrave 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.
More Ida B. Wells Quotes
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The nineteenth century lynching mob cuts off ears, toes, and fingers, strips off flesh, and distributes portions of the body as souvenirs among the crowd.
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The white man’s victory soon became complete by fraud, violence, intimidation and murder.
IDA B. WELLS -
The emergency no longer existing, lynching gradually disappeared from the West.
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.
IDA B. WELLS -
I had an instinctive feeling that the people who have little or no school training should have something coming into their homes weekly which dealt with their problems in a simple, helpful way… so I wrote in a plain, common-sense way on the things that concerned our people.
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 -
The people must know before they can act, and there is no educator to compare with the press.
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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
IDA B. WELLS -
I shall feel I have done my race a service. Other considerations are of minor importance.
IDA B. WELLS -
The alleged menace of universal suffrage having been avoided by the absolute suppression of the negro vote, the spirit of mob murder should have been satisfied and the butchery of negroes should have ceased.
IDA B. WELLS -
There must always be a remedy for wrong and injustice if we only know how to find it.
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 only times an Afro-American who was assaulted got away has been when he had a gun and used it in self-defense.
IDA B. WELLS -
The way to right wrongs is to turn the light of truth upon them.
IDA B. WELLS