An editorial about the writings of Ida B. Wells Essay

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An editorial about the writings of Ida B. Wells Essay

Ida B. Wells wrote the three pamphlets “Southern Horrors” (1892), “A Red Record” (1895), and “Mob Rule in New Orleans” (1900) as an attempt to publicize the atrocities being committed against African Americans in the New South. These writings are important today, not because lynching of African Americans occurs with any regularity, but because they are accounts contemporary with the events they detail and because the pamphlets illustrate the dangers of: mob rule, justifying immoral acts by claiming to have a moral purpose, and the tendency of people everywhere to strike out against anything new or different with violence.This message is even more relevant today when the current president is so willing to suspend the rights of others so that the people of America can be “safe”. The fear of one group of people who mistrust another group should never result in suspension of rights of another. Just like the eroding of the rights of African Americans during the time when Wells was writing, the suspension of rights of people who look as if they are or might be terrorists in the current world is wrong and should not be tolerated. Ida B.Wells wrote with two purposes in mind: one was educational, the other was to publicize the atrocities committed in the New South with the hope of eliciting reaction from people who would then help bring an end to “Lynch Law” and other injustices committed against African Americans. Wells wanted to educate those people who were unfamiliar with the New South regarding the violence and double standards far to common in the South. Wells wrote to tell the facts about lynchings in the South so that people would no longer believe lynching was a response to an egregious crime.“She sought to recast lynching in the public eye so that it was not perceived as an understandable though unpleasant response to heinous acts, but as itself a crime against American values” (Wells 27). According to Wells the perception that all white women were pure and uninterested in have African Americans as husbands is untrue, “there are many white women in the Sought who would marry colored men if such an act would not place them at once beyond the pale of society and within the clutches of the law” (Wells 53).At the same time laws forbade African American men and white women from “commingling,” Wells points out “they leave the white man free to seduce all the colored girls he can” (Wells 53). Although Wells writing centers on lynching because of alleged rape she makes an important point when she cautions that “a concession of the right to lynch a man for any crime, . . . concedes the right to lynch any person for any crime, . . . ” (Wells 61). Wells also wanted to call citizens of the North, government officials and people in Great Britain to act to end lynch law.She urged them “employ boycott, emigration and the press . . . to stamp out lynch law . . . ” (Wells 72). Ida B. Wells wrote to three different audiences. To those people living in the New South Wells wrote not so much about horrific events that occurred, but about the justifications they used to excuse their behavior. As mentioned above, she wrote of the double standard between the races and of the potential danger of expanding lynching to suit the whims and fancies of any mob at any time.To those Americans living outside the South Wells wrote to shock them with the descriptions of the horrid events, to educate them about how African Americans were still being treated despite the Civil War and despite the Constitutional Amendments guaranteeing rights to African Americans. Wells writes to the people of the North to show them that all is not well in the South and that the advances made in the past were being pushed aside. In her first pamphlet, “Southern Horrors,” Wells wrote about the existing injustices and ongoing terrorist acts performed against African Americans.To the rest of the world, particularly Great Britain, Wells wrote “A Red Record” she “respectfully submitted [this pamphlet] to the Nineteenth Century civilization in ‘the Land of the Free and the Home of the Brave” (Wells title page). This pamphlet recounts the numbers and details of more than four hundred lynchings occurring in the United States against African Americans. Wells hoped to appeal to the sensibilities of British people who were potential investors in the South so they would invest elsewhere “the appeal to the white man’s pocket has ever been more effectual than all the appeals ever made to his conscience.” To those in power in the United States Wells wrote “Mob Rule in New Orleans” to those in power in hopes of their bringing to an end to authorities who allow, and at times encourage mobs to act. Although it is difficult to quantify what the actual affects of Wells’ writing were, it is clear that during the next century, the groups she wrote for did make great strides toward establishing equality and eliminating injustices based on race. It is not unreasonable to suggest that Wells’ writing had a hand in starting this process.Wells’ writings are certainly among the earliest of Post-reconstruction writing to reintroduce the difficulties of African American lives, but they were not the last. It is likely that her writing influenced and encouraged others to continue the work Wells began. As I read through the accounts of these horrible, disgusting lynchings I felt saddened and depressed. Clearly there were many injustices committed and many were people hurt, imprisoned, or killed.Some of these are particularly gruesome such as Chapter III of A Red Record, “Lynching Imbeciles: An Arkansas Butchery” where Henry Smith was tortured and burned at the stake (Wells 88-98). According to figures gathered by the NAACP (an organization with Wells as one of the founding members) there were 3,318 African Americans killed by lynching between 1892 and 1931. Certainly one cannot dismiss or excuse these egregious acts in any fashion. However I was not particularly surprised or shocked by these events.Perhaps it is because I live in a world where the Jewish Holocaust of World War II is well known, a world where a country, Cambodia, went mad, and slaughtered between 1. 5 and 3 million of 7 million its own citizens. Perhaps it is because I live in a world where the recent genocides in Rwanda and Somalia were largely unknown until made into a wide screen blockbuster movie. Perhaps it is because of the 9/11 attacks (coincidentally the number killed on 9/11 and the number of dead American soldiers in Iraq are remarkably similar to the 3300+ listed in the NAACP’s figures).For whatever reason, I find myself somewhat inured against these accounts. I am not sure whether this reveals more about me or about the society I live in, but I cannot help but wonder if Ida B. Wells were writing today would there be any impact at all.Perhaps not: more’s the pity.Works Cited Wells, Ida B. Southern Horrors and Other Writings: The Anti-Lynching Campaign of Ida B. Wells, 1892-1900. Ed. with intro Jacqueline Jones Royster. Boston: Bedford Books, 1997.