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.
IDA B. WELLSThus lynch law held sway in the far West until civilization spread into the Territories and the orderly processes of law took its place.
More Ida B. Wells Quotes
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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 -
Virtue knows no color line.
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 South resented giving the Afro-American his freedom, the ballot box and the Civil Rights Law.
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 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 way to right wrongs is to turn the light of truth upon them.
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 lesson this teaches and which every Afro-American should ponder well, is that a Winchester rifle should have a place of honor in every black home, and it should be used for that protection which the law refuses to give.
IDA B. WELLS -
One had better die fighting against injustice than die like a dog or a rat in a trap.
IDA B. WELLS -
The white man’s victory soon became complete by fraud, violence, intimidation and murder.
IDA B. WELLS -
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.
IDA B. WELLS -
The people must know before they can act, and there is no educator to compare with the press.
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 -
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