Southern Horrors
...writing for a black newspaper. It was at this point that she began her crusade against racism and its direct result “lynching”. “ Wells' flaming editorials condemned white establishments for their continual oppression of blacks. In 1891 she was fired from her teaching position because of an editorial criticizing the Memphis School Board of Education for conditions in "separate" colored schools” (McBride). In one editorial Wells writes "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 racket—the new alarm about raping white women. The same programme of hanging, then shooting bullets into the lifeless bodies was carried out to the letter.”. Wells is attempting to convey just how serious lynching was becoming all across the nation. Within a short period of time lynching was more than a problem it was an epidemic that seemed to be sweeping across more and more of the nation. It became the easy way out for many whites; If a husband raped his wife a black was blamed, if a black was caught or suspected of anything he was hanged, beaten, shot, and burned just cause. He did not pass GO and completely bypassed jail. But the violence didn’t stop there, any woman or child that attempted to stand up for the accused was lynched just the same. One of the many road blocks that prevented Wells from quickly succeeding in her crusade was the fact that no one believed that any of the men, lynched, were in any way innocent. “A white corrospondent of the Baltimore Sun declares that the African American who was lynched in Chestertown, Md, in May for assault on a white girl was innocent.” (Horrors 66). In fact, more often than not it was the lynched that had been truly innocent. Wells revealed this time after countless time, each death researched unbiasedly and to its fullest potential. After a short time the white public could not allow, what many thought to be slander, to be written and burned down the Wells’ publishing office. However, the destruction of her office did not slow Wells down. Ida decided that if she was not able to stop lynching through the press in America, she would travel overseas and hit the US where it mattered most. At this time England bought large quantities of textiles from the US and Wells thought that if she could show the English how the US was acquiring the work force to harvest and manufactur...