US History

The Emergence of Modern America (1890-1930)

Women

African Americans

This collection uses primary sources to explore Ida B. Wells and her leadership in anti-lynching activism.

A legal brief for Ida B. Wells’ lawsuit against Chesapeake, Ohio, and Southwestern Railroad Company before the state Supreme Court, 1885.

In 1883, Ida B. Wells traveled by train from Memphis to Woodstock, Tennessee, where she was working as a teacher. The conductor asked Wells to move to a different car because of her race. When she refused, she was removed from the train and sued the railroad company in 1884. The court decided in her favor and ordered the railroad company to pay damages, which they did. But they also appealed the case to the Tennessee Supreme Court in 1885, which is documented here. Wells was represented by African American attorney Thomas Frank Cassels. The state Supreme Court decided in favor of the railroad company, reversing the earlier decision. 

Transcript of Ida B. Well’s testimony:

On the trial of this case the following evidence was introduced by the plaintiff: 
The Plaintiff: 
Who said:

I am 20 years of age and unmarried, my profession is that of School Teacher and during September 1883, I was teaching a public school at Woodstock, a station on defendant’s road, ten miles North of Memphis. My salary was $30.00 a month -- On 15th September, 1883. I was in Memphis, and started to return to Woodstock - took a seat in the rear car of defendant’s passenger train that left Memphis about 4 o’clock that afternoon. When I went in the car, some half hour before leaving time the ticket office was not open - I afterwards went out and bought a ticket which read as follows:

Chesapeake Ohio & Southwestern R.R. 
one continuous trip 
Memphis to Woodstock.

I returned to my seat in the rear car. There were only two passenger cars in the train, two passenger car, and one baggage car. I saw one drunken white man in the front coach. I had before this time ridden in said rear car, once about July 1883. Rougher people ride in the front car than in the rear car. There was no person on the seat with me and I was the only colored person in that car. The car was not crowded. When a mile or so from Memphis, the conductor came collecting tickets, he took mine, looked at me, and returned it to me, saying he could not accept it in that car, and passed on. I was reading a news paper at the time. Directly the conductor returned to me and said that I would have to go to the coach in front, that I was in the wrong car. That he had the rear car for white people alone, and that colored people must ride in the forward coach. To this I replied, that I would not ride in the forward car, that I had a seat and intended to keep it. He said to me that he would treat me like a lady, but that I must go into the other car, and I replied, that if he wished to treat me like a lady, he would leave me alone. When we reached Fraziers, the first station, the train stopped and the conductor again came to me and said he would again ask me politely to go into the other car, and I refused to do so. He then took hold of me to carry me to the other car. I resisted him - holding on to my seat when he called for help, and two white passengers helped him to carry me out. I resisted all the time, and never consented to go. My dress was torn in the struggle, one sleve [sic] was almost torn off. Everybody in the car seemed to sympathize with the conductor, and were against me. The conductor had carried my bag and parasole [sic] etc. into the forward coach before carrying me out, and when they got me onto the platform between the cars, I got off the train refusing to go into the forward coach. The conductor asked me not to get off, but I said that I would not ride in the forward coach. There were several colored passengers in that car. I paid 30 ¢ for my ticket and still hold it. The train was known as the Covington accommodation, and run between Covington and Memphis. I also noticed smoking going on in the forward car. This car was used for colored men and white men too. There never was any smoking and drunkenness in the rear coach and sometimes colored people also rode in it.

And G. H. Clowers a colored man who said:

I am a minister. In September 1883 I was holding a camp meeting at Lucy station on defendants road [sic] 15 miles North of Memphis. I was on the train on 15th September 1883, when plaintiff was ejected from rear car; I was riding in the forward coach. There may have been 3 coaches, certainly not less than 2. The people in said forward coach where I was were rough, they were smoking, talking and drinking, very rough. It was no fit place for a lady. There were no white ladies.

A portrait of Ida B. Wells, ca. 1893.

The cover page for *Southern Horrors: Lynch Law In All Its Phases* (1892), the first pamphlet by Ida B. Wells dedicated to exposing lynching.

The cover page for *A Red Record: Tabulated Statistics and Alleged Causes of Lynchings in the United States, 1892-1893-1894* by Ida B. Wells.

In *A Red Record*, Ida B. Wells exposed the practice of lynching as a tactic designed to maintain white supremacy and limit African American opportunities for economic, social, and political power. Wells addressed and dismantled white southerners’ typical justifications for lynching, which included the alleged threats of “race riots,” the chaos that would result from “Negro rule” should African Americans be allowed to exercise their fifteenth amendment right to vote, and black criminality, specifically the rape of white women. In *A Red Record*, Wells collected and published the newspaper accounts of hundreds of lynchings of African Americans across the southern states for the years 1892, 1893, and 1894 along with their alleged crimes. Wells expands on the raw statistics with accounts of specific incidents in which legal due process was denied, families and individuals were targeted arbitrarily, and innocent people were killed.

An illustration with portraits of African American leaders, including Ida B. Wells-Barnett, ca. 1900.

This illustration comes from *The College of Life; or Practical Self-Educator; A Manual of Self-Improvement for the Colored Race; Forming an Educational Emancipator and a Guide to Success* (ca. 1900).


A political cartoon by Thomas Nast titled “The Union as it Was,” published in *Harper’s Weekly* October 24, 1874.

The Ku Klux Klan was established in 1866 and was dedicated to maintaining white supremacy, often employing terrorist tactics and violence, including lynching African Americans and others who supported racial equality. Thomas Nast was a cartoonist for *Harper’s Weekly Illustrated Newspaper*, which was published in New York City.


Lynching announcements from *New Orleans States* and *Jackson Daily News* reproduced in *The Crisis*, August 1919.

*The Crisis* magazine was established by W.E.B. DuBois in 1910 as the official magazine of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP). These lynching announcements from southern newspapers were reprinted in *The Crisis* accompanying a column headed “Crime” listing a number of recent lynchings in the South. The reproduced headlines from New Orleans and Jackson refer to a man named John Hartfield, who was hanged, shot, and burned to death on June 26, 1919 for allegedly having a relationship with a white woman. 

Transcript:

The Crisis 
(Reprinted from the *NEW ORLEANS STATES*)

3,000 WILL BURN NEGRO 
Kaiser Under Stronger Guard Following Escape of Crown Prince 
Frank Simonds Writes for Tates 
*NEW ORLEANS STATES* 
VOL 39 NO 177	New Orleans, La. 	Thursday, June 26, 1919

(Reprinted from the *JACKSON DAILY NEWS*) 
JOHN HARTFIELD WILL BE 
LYNCHED BY ELLISVILLE MOB 
AT 5 O’CLOCK THIS AFTERNOON 
Governor Bilbo Says He Is Powerless to Prevent It -- Thousands of People Are Flocking Into Ellisville to Attend the Event -- Sheriff and Authorities Are Powerless to Prevent It.

Hattiesburg, June 26. -- John Hartfield, the negro alleged to have assaulted an Ellisville, young woman, has been taken to Ellisville and is guarded by officers in the office of Dr. Carter in that city. He is wounded in the shoulder but not seriously. The officers have agreed to turn him over to the people of the city at 4 o’clock this afternoon when it is expected he will be burned. The negro is said to have made a partial confession.

Gov. Bilbo Says 
He is Powerless. 
When Gov. Bilbo was shown the above dispatch and asked what action if any, he intended to take to prevent the affair, he said: 
“I am powerless to prevent it. We have guns for state militia but no men. It is impossible to send troops to the scene for the obvious reason that we have no troops.
“Several days ago anticipating… [missing]

...for the lynching has now been fixed for five p.m. 
A committee of Ellisville citizens has been appointed to make the necessary arrangements for the event, and the mob is pledged to act in conformity with these arrangements. 
Rev. L.G. Bates, pastor of the First Baptist church of Laurel, left here at one o’clock for Ellisville to entreat the mob to use discretion.

*(Warning: graphic material)* A photograph showing the aftermath of a public lynching in Columbus, Georgia, June 1, 1896.

An address about Ida B. Wells’ speaking tour in England, adopted by a group of African American citizens in St. Paul, Minnesota, 1894.

A letter from A. M. Middlebrook to Albion Tourgée about a lynching to be held in Pine Bluff, Arkansas, Sept. 28, 1894.

Albion Winegar Tourgée was a judge and lawyer active in Reconstruction politics in North Carolina as an advocate for equal rights for African Americans during the 1860s and 1870s. In 1896, Tourgée represented Homer Plessy in the landmark Supreme Court case *Plessy v. Ferguson* and championed an anti-lynching bill in the state of Ohio. A. M. Middlebrook was a Baptist minister in Pine Bluff, Arkansas.

Transcript (reverse side of letter):

Ps. I have referred to the three men that they lynched at McGhee’s Section on last Saturday night for the killing of H.C. Patton a merchant. This place is near the? Miss. River where leaping of the [its] banks is going on more or less all the time and rough whitemen are continually killing each other and robbing each other. As to the helping of the lynching of these men by negroes that is a lie. Nothing of the kind was done. The mob passed in some Negro boys at a railroad hotel at that railroad junction they took the three men and hung them by the necks and tortured confessions from them.

Yours, 
A.M.M.

A letter from Ida B. Wells to Albion Tourgée, Nov. 27, 1894.

Albion Tourgée was a collaborator and supporter of Ida B. Wells. In this letter she thanks him for his support after an incident involving Frances Willard, a white woman who was the leader of the Women’s Christian Temperance Union (WCTU), a powerful national reform organization against the consumption of alcohol. 

Transcript:

Pittsburg, Nov. 27, 94. 
Judge A. W. Tourgee; Mayville, N.Y.

Dear Sir - 
I have today read your strong words in defense of me and the cause. As always, I feel grateful to you for the only unequivocal expressions in behalf of justice which you alone seemed moved to make. I feel especially grateful at the word this time in reply to Miss Willard’s specious arguments and statements. Miss W. has never forgiven me for telling what she said in condonation of lynching and christian tho she be, she could not resist the opportunity to strike at me thro [sic] her association. She succeeded in doing what she intended. For the enter organization believes I “misrepresented the W.C.T.U.” while in England and no opportunity was given for me to explain. Your words are most opportune in setting the matter clearly before the public. The southern women delegates had a caucus at Cleveland and succeeded in preventing the passage of any resolution by the national body against lynching.

Again, thanking you for these and all other words in behalf of justice, I am

Yours truly, 
Ida B. Wells 
395 Gold St. 
Brooklyn

A portrait of Ida B. Wells-Barnett, 1920s.

The introduction to *The Tragedy of Lynching*, produced by the Commission on Interracial Cooperation, 1933.

The Commission on Interracial Cooperation was established in Atlanta, Georgia in 1918 to address issues of interracial violence including riots and lynching. George Fort Milton, a newspaper executive, historian, and advisor to U.S. government agencies, was the Chairman of the Southern Commission on the Study of Lynching from 1930 to 1932.


Questions

1. Examine the title pages of [*Southern Horrors*](http://dp.la/primary-source-sets/ida-b-wells-and-anti-lynching-activism/sources/1115) and [*A Red Record*](http://dp.la/primary-source-sets/ida-b-wells-and-anti-lynching-activism/sources/1116). Compare the use of imagery, color, and text. What do you think Wells was trying to convey to her audience? How do you think she wanted her readers to feel when they saw her publications? 
2. What do you interpret the title [*A Red Record*](http://dp.la/primary-source-sets/ida-b-wells-and-anti-lynching-activism/sources/1115) to mean? In what ways does Wells employ irony in the pamphlet’s subtitle, “Respectfully submitted to the Nineteenth Century civilization in ‘the Land of the Free and the Home of the Brave’”? 
3. Using the [court record from Wells’ lawsuit](http://dp.la/primary-source-sets/ida-b-wells-and-anti-lynching-activism/sources/1113) against the railroad company and her [portrait from 1893](http://dp.la/primary-source-sets/ida-b-wells-and-anti-lynching-activism/sources/1114), imagine Wells in the scene that she recounts on the train and, later, in a courtroom providing the recorded testimony. What does Wells’ testimony reveal about her character? 
4. In the [illustration from *The College of Life*](http://dp.la/primary-source-sets/ida-b-wells-and-anti-lynching-activism/sources/1117), the caption below Wells’ portrait reads “Lecturer, Defender of the Race.” In what ways did she fulfill this role?
5. What does the [*Harper’s Weekly* cartoon](http://dp.la/primary-source-sets/ida-b-wells-and-anti-lynching-activism/sources/1118) reveal about the motivation(s) of the Ku Klux Klan? In what way is lynching part of the Klan’s strategy?
6. Using the [lynching announcements](http://dp.la/primary-source-sets/ida-b-wells-and-anti-lynching-activism/sources/1119) that were reprinted in *The Crisis*, the [photograph of a lynching](http://dp.la/primary-source-sets/ida-b-wells-and-anti-lynching-activism/sources/1120), and the [letter from A. M. Middlebrook](http://dp.la/primary-source-sets/ida-b-wells-and-anti-lynching-activism/sources/1122), explain what each reveals about the relationship between the state government, the local police, and local white citizens when it came to the practice of lynching. 
7. Lynchings were sometimes planned, public events that people came to watch. Using the [lynching announcements](http://dp.la/primary-source-sets/ida-b-wells-and-anti-lynching-activism/sources/1119) that were reprinted in *The Crisis* and the [photograph of a lynching](http://dp.la/primary-source-sets/ida-b-wells-and-anti-lynching-activism/sources/1120), explain why the “committee of Ellisville citizens” and other white groups or individuals wanted these events to be public. Why do you think the men, women, and children who attended wanted to watch? What would it have felt like to be an African American citizen of Ellisville, Mississippi or Columbus, Georgia at this time?
8. What does her [address](http://dp.la/primary-source-sets/ida-b-wells-and-anti-lynching-activism/sources/1121) say about what Ida B. Wells hoped to achieve with her speaking tour in England and Ireland?
9. What does the [letter by Ida B. Wells to Albion Tourgee](http://dp.la/primary-source-sets/ida-b-wells-and-anti-lynching-activism/sources/1123) reveal about their relationship? Analyze what this letter and the address reveal about public perception of Ida B. Wells. How do you think she felt about pushback she received from the media or other reform leaders?
10. Read the introduction to Wells’ *A Red Record* online. Compare the [introduction to *The Tragedy of Lynching*](http://dp.la/primary-source-sets/ida-b-wells-and-anti-lynching-activism/sources/1125). Do you think Milton and Raper had read Wells’ work as part of their research? How are their approaches and tones different from hers? 


Activity

1. Ask students to select one of the specific instances of lynching in the set: the John Hartfield lynching, one of the cases included in *A Red Record*, or the lynching mentioned in A. M. Middlebrook’s letter. Ask students to conduct outside research on each case or the context for the case by learning more about the time and place in which it occurred. Ask students to write a short speech from Ida B. Wells’ perspective responding to the lynching they selected. Host a mock community meeting at which students deliver their speeches. 
2. Read the [Equal Justice Initiative’s article about Mamie Lang](http://www.eji.org/node/1150), who was present during John Hartfield’s lynching. Lead a class discussion comparing the perspective of Lang and her family with the perspective expressed in the local newspaper excerpts. Ask students to reflect on this case and differing perspectives in a creative project (a poem, spoken word piece, drawing, painting, song, etc.).

Teaching Guide: Exploring Ida B. Wells and Anti-Lynching Activism

Resources

1. [Finding aid and digitized images for the Ida B. Wells Papers](http://www.lib.uchicago.edu/e/scrc/findingaids/view.php?eadid=ICU.SPCL.IBWELLS), University of Chicago. 
2. [*Southern Horrors: Lynch Law in all its Phases*](http://www.gutenberg.org/files/14975/14975-h/14975-h.htm) full text, Project Gutenberg. 
3. “[A lynching survivor returns](https://eji.org/news/lynching-survivor-mamie-lang-kirkland-returns-to-mississippi/),” an interview with Mamie Lang, who was present for John Hartfield murder, Equal Justice Initiative. 
4. “[Justice Deferred: Albion Tourgee and the Fight for Civil Rights](http://web.uncg.edu/hrs/documents/JusticeDeferred.pdf),” Chautauqua County Historical Society. 
5. “[The Root: How Racism Tainted Women’s Suffrage](http://www.npr.org/2011/03/25/134849480/the-root-how-racism-tainted-womens-suffrage),” NPR. 
6. [Map of 73 Years of Lynchings](http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2015/02/10/us/map-of-73-years-of-lynching.html), *The New York Times*. 

Overview

Ida B. Wells was a journalist, lecturer, civil rights leader, and the leading activist against lynching during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. “Lynching” refers to an instance when a person or group of people acting outside the law physically punishes another person, often resulting in death. During Reconstruction and after, instances of lynching in the US rose dramatically as Southern white communities targeted, threatened, and killed African Americans, often with little or no justification, in an attempt to maintain social, economic, and political power. 

Ida B. Wells was born in rural Mississippi in the midst of the Civil War. As a young adult, Wells moved to Memphis, Tennessee, where she became a teacher and soon took a stand against Jim Crow segregation. In 1889, Wells became co-owner and editor of *The Free Speech and Headlight* newspaper, which she used to speak out against racial injustice. When three of her friends were lynched in retribution for their economic success and a mob of white residents destroyed the office of her newspaper, Wells was forced to leave Memphis, but she continued her anti-lynching activism as a writer, journalist, and lecturer. 

Ida B. Wells was also involved in women’s rights activism, specifically focusing on African American women, and was among the co-founders of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) in 1909. She married racial justice activist and lawyer Ferdinand Barnett in 1895 and settled in Chicago, where she became one of the leading members of the Chicago black community and worked on another newspaper, *The Conservator*. Ida B. Wells-Barnett stepped back from public engagements and travel while she raised her four children, but remained committed to racial justice and ran for Illinois state senator in 1930, though she did not win. The documents and images in this primary source set follow the development of Ida B. Wells’ career as a journalist and activist and also represent the practice of lynching that she dedicated her career to fighting against.

English

Ida B. Wells and Anti-Lynching Activism

ida-b-wells-anti-lynching-activism_02_f60a26b16d9d00e10e2bcc9acfc4be25.jpg

Courtesy of National Portrait Gallery via Smithsonian Institution.

Garrity, Mary, “Ida B. Wells-Barnett,” Digital Public Library of America, https://dp.la/item/f60a26b16d9d00e10e2bcc9acfc4be25.

A portrait of Ida B. Wells, ca. 1893.

Cite this item

Tips for Students

Item 2 of 13 in the Primary Source Set Ida B. Wells and Anti-Lynching Activism