1880: The Advocacy of Ida B. Wells against Lynching

1800-1899: A Divided Nation
Written By Stephanie Brizee

Big Idea

Lynching was a term used to describe the torture and murder of Black men, women, and youth. It was used by White mobs to instill fear and enforce racial segregation across the States. Black activists like Ida B. Wells utilized the press and community organizations to highlight the horrendous nature of this crime and call on the Federal Government to stop it.

What’s important to know?

  1. Mob Violence: Lynching — a horrific act of kidnapping, violence, and murder — became one of the key torture methods used by White men across the United States, especially through organizations such as the Ku Klux Klan, to enforce Jim Crow and Black segregation.

  2. Ida B. Wells: Journalist and writer, Ida B. Wells become an outspoken voice raising awareness of the horrors of lynching and seeking to compel the federal government to take actions to stop it.

1: Mob Violence

Depiction of Ku Klux Klan in North Carolina in 1870, based on a photograph taken under the supervision of a federal officer who seized Klan costumes.

Ku Klux Klan

Depiction of Ku Klux Klan in North Carolina in 1870, based on a photograph taken under the supervision of a federal officer who seized Klan costumes.
Image Source: Wikipedia

As the South struggled to recover economically from the old plantation system, white anger grew and focused on Blacks communities. African Americans were viewed suspiciously, and brutal, extrajudicial killings were used to control them and keep them in a state of fear and subjugation. Lynching became an especially horrendous tool used by the Ku Klux Klan and other white mobs as a way to instill fear and to ensure that Black people followed the racial segregation required by whites (Litwack, 2004). 

Historian Amy Wood wrote that “between 1880 and 1940, white mobs in the south killed at least 3,200 Black men” (Woods, 2009, p. 3.). While lynching occurred across the United States and against people other than Blacks, “most Americans at the turn of the century understood lynching as a Southern practice and as a form of racial violence that white mobs committed against African American men” (p. 4). 

Lynching: The NAACP defines lynching as: “A lynching is the public killing of an individual who has not received any due process.”

“[B]etween 1880 and 1940, white mobs in the south killed at least 3,200 Black men.”
— Amy Wood

2: Ida B. Wells

Black and white photograph of Ida B. Wells from 1893.

Ida B. Wells

Photograph of Ida B. Wells by Mary Garrity from 1893.
Image Source: Wikipedia

Ida B. Wells was a powerful journalist and activist against the horrific practice of lynching in the United Staes.

Born into enslavement in 1862 and emancipated after the Civil War, she became a strong leader for African American rights throughout her life. She spoke out against segregation and the deplorable conditions of Black schools as a result of White control over school funding.

After her friend was murdered by a White lynch mob in Memphis, Tennessee in 1892, she became active in drawing attention to the horrific crime. She said of lynching, “This is what opened my eyes to what lynching really was: an excuse to get rid of Negroes who were acquiring wealth and property and thus keep the race terrorized” (Wells, 2020). She published the first documented case against lynching later that year through the African American newspaper, The New York Age. The newspaper put her exposé on the front page and printed 10,000 copies.

Students

Want to learn more? Listen to this podcast from Seizing Freedom about Ida B. Well’s and her pursuit of truth and justice through the press.

Watch the video below about Ida B. Well’s and her anti-lynching activism.

This video was created by the New-York Historical Society Teen Leaders in collaboration with the Untold project.

“This is what opened my eyes to what lynching really was: an excuse to get rid of Negroes who were acquiring wealth and property and thus keep the race terrorized.”
— Ida B. Wells in Crusade for Justice

Your Turn

Why is it so hard for our country to talk about the history of lynching? How can we engage in appropriate and honest conversations about what happened during Jim Crow?

  • General Resources:

    Books & Articles:

    • Frazier, H. C. (2009). Lynchings in Missouri, 1803-1981.McFarland Press.

    • Harper, K. (2012). White Man's Heaven: The Lynching and Expulsion of Blacks in the Southern Ozarks, 1894-1909. University of Arkansas Press.

    Archives:

    Museums & State Parks:

    • Duster, M. (2021) Ida B. The Queen: The Extraordinary Life and Legacy of Ida B. Wells. Simon & Schuster.

    • Giddings, P. (2008) Ida, A Sword Among Lions: Ida B. Wells and the Campaign Against Lynching. Armistad/ HarperCollins

    • Hill, K. K. (2016). Beyond The Rope: The Impact of Lynching on Black Culture and Memory. Cambridge University Press.

    • Wells, I. B. (2020, reprint) Crusade for Justice: The Autobiography of Ida B. Wells. University of Chicago Press.

    • Litwack, L. (1999). Trouble in mind : Black southerners in the age of jim crow. Vintage Books.

    • -----. (2004). Jim crow blues. Magazine of History, 18(2), 7-11,58. https://search.proquest.com/docview/213741735?accountid=14741

    • Wells, I. B. (2020, reprint) Crusade for Justice: The Autobiography of Ida B. Wells. University of Chicago Press.

    • Wood, A. (2011). Lynching and spectacle: Witnessing racial violence in America, 1890-1940. University of North Carolina Press.

Stephanie Brizee
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1879: The Exodusters and the St. Louis African American Community
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1896: Plessy v. Ferguson and Institutionalized Segregation