Ida B. Wells - Southern Horrors: Lynch Law in All Its Phases

The greater part of what is contained in these pages was published in theNew York Age June 25, 1892, in explanation of the editorial which theMemphis whites considered sufficiently infamous to justify the destructionof my paper, the Free Speech.

Since the appearance of that statement, requests have come from all partsof the country that "Exiled" (the name under which it then appeared) beissued in pamphlet form. Some donations were made, but not enough for thatpurpose. The noble effort of the ladies of New York and Brooklyn Oct. 5have enabled me to comply with this request and give the world a true,unvarnished account of the causes of lynch law in the South.

This statement is not a shield for the despoiler of virtue, nor altogethera defense for the poor blind Afro-American Sampsons who suffer themselvesto be betrayed by white Delilahs. It is a contribution to truth, an arrayof facts, the perusal of which it is hoped will stimulate this greatAmerican Republic to demand that justice be done though the heavens fall.

It is with no pleasure I have dipped my hands in the corruption hereexposed. Somebody must show that the Afro-American race is more sinnedagainst than sinning, and it seems to have fallen upon me to do so. Theawful death-roll that Judge Lynch is calling every week is appalling, notonly because of the lives it takes, the rank cruelty and outrage to thevictims, but because of the prejudice it fosters and the stain it placesagainst the good name of a weak race.

The Afro-American is not a bestial race. If this work can contribute inany way toward proving this, and at the same time arouse the conscience ofthe American people to a demand for justice to every citizen, andpunishment by law for the lawless, I shall feel I have done my race aservice. Other considerations are of minor importance.

IDA B. WELLS
New York City, Oct. 26, 1892

To the Afro-American women of New York and Brooklyn, whose race love,earnest zeal and unselfish effort at Lyric Hall, in the City of New York,on the night of October 5, 1892made possible its publication, thispamphlet is gratefully dedicated by the author.

Dear Miss Wells:

Let me give you thanks for your faithful paper on the lynch abominationnow generally practiced against colored people in the South. There hasbeen no word equal to it in convincing power. I have spoken, but my wordis feeble in comparison. You give us what you know and testify from actualknowledge. You have dealt with the facts with cool, painstaking fidelityand left those naked and uncontradicted facts to speak for themselves.

Brave woman! you have done your people and mine a service which canneither be weighed nor measured. If American conscience were only halfalive, if the American church and clergy were only half christianized, ifAmerican moral sensibility were not hardened by persistent infliction ofoutrage and crime against colored people, a scream of horror, shame andindignation would rise to Heaven wherever your pamphlet shall be read.

But alas! even crime has power to reproduce itself and create conditionsfavorable to its own existence. It sometimes seems we are deserted byearth and Heaven yet we must still think, speak and work, and trust in thepower of a merciful God for final deliverance.

Very truly and gratefully yours,
FREDERICK DOUGLASS
Cedar Hill, Anacostia, D.C., Oct. 25, 1892

Wednesday evening May 24, 1892, the city of Memphis was filled withexcitement. Editorials in the daily papers of that date caused a meetingto be held in the Cotton Exchange Building; a committee was sent for theeditors of the Free Speech an Afro-American journal published in thatcity, and the only reason the open threats of lynching that were made werenot carried out was because they could not be found. The cause of all thiscommotion was the following editorial published in the Free Speech May21, 1892, the Saturday previous.

Eight negroes lynched since last issue of the Free Speech one at Little Rock, Ark., last Saturday morning where the citizens broke(?) into the penitentiary and got their man; three near Anniston, Ala., one near New Orleans; and three at Clarksville, Ga., the last three for killing a white man, and five on the same old racketthe new alarm about raping white women. The same programme of hanging, then shooting bullets into the lifeless bodies was carried out to the letter.

Nobody in this section of the country believes the old thread-bare lie that Negro men rape white women. If Southern white men are not careful, they will overreach themselves and public sentiment will have a reaction; a conclusion will then be reached which will be very damaging to the moral reputation of their women.

The Daily Commercial of Wednesday following, May 25, contained thefollowing leader:

Those negroes who are attempting to make the lynching of individuals of their race a means for arousing the worst passions of their kind are playing with a dangerous sentiment. The negroes may as well understand that there is no mercy for the negro rapist and little patience with his defenders. A negro organ printed in this city, in a recent issue publishes the following atrocious paragraph: "Nobody in this section of the country believes the old thread-bare lie that negro men rape white women. If Southern white men are not careful they will overreach themselves, and public sentiment will have a reaction; and a conclusion will be reached which will be very damaging to the moral reputation of their women."

The fact that a black scoundrel is allowed to live and utter such loathsome and repulsive calumnies is a volume of evidence as to the wonderful patience of Southern whites. But we have had enough of it.

There are some things that the Southern white man will not tolerate, and the obscene intimations of the foregoing have brought the writer to the very outermost limit of public patience. We hope we have said enough.

The Evening Scimitar of same date, copied the Commercial's editorialwith these words of comment:

Patience under such circumstances is not a virtue. If the negroes themselves do not apply the remedy without delay it will be the duty of those whom he has attacked to tie the wretch who utters these calumnies to a stake at the intersection of Main and Madison Sts., brand him in the forehead with a hot iron and perform upon him a surgical operation with a pair of tailor's shears.

Acting upon this advice, the leading citizens met in the Cotton ExchangeBuilding the same evening, and threats of lynching were freely indulged,not by the lawless element upon which the deviltry of the South is usuallysaddledbut by the leading business men, in their leading businesscentre. Mr. Fleming, the business manager and owning a half interest the