1909 Ida B Wells Lynching Our National Crime M E N U S E A R C H 1909 IDA B WELLS LYNCHING OUR NATIONAL CRIME SEPTEMBER 22 2008 CONTRIBUTED BY BLACKPAST Ida B Wells Barnett c 1893 Photo by Mary Garrity https www blackpast org african american history 1909 ida b wells awful slaughter 7 26 2020 3 21 52 PM 1909 Ida B Wells Lynching Our National Crime By 1909 Ida B Wells was the most prominent anti lynching campaigner in the United States From the early 1890s she labored mostly alone in her effort to raise the nation s awareness and indignation about these usually unpunished murders In 1909 however she gained a powerful ally in the newly formed National Association for the Advancement of Colored People NAACP The following speech was delivered by Wells at the National Negro Conference the forerunner to the NAACP in New York City on May 31 June 1 1909 The lynching record for a quarter of a century merits the thoughtful study of the American people It presents three salient facts First lynching is color line murder Second crimes against women is the excuse not the cause Third it is a national crime and requires a national remedy Proof that lynching follows the color line is to be found in the statistics which have been kept for the past twenty five years During the few years preceding this period and while frontier law existed the executions showed a majority of white victims Later however as law courts and authorized judiciary extended into the far West lynch law rapidly abated and its white victims became few and far between Just as the lynch law regime came to a close in the West a new mob movement started in the South This was wholly political its purpose being to suppress the colored vote by intimidation and murder Thousands of assassins banded together under the name of Ku Klux Klans Midnight Raiders Knights of the Golden Circle et cetera et cetera spread a reign of terror by beating shooting and killing colored in a few years the purpose was accomplished and the black vote was supressed But mob murder continued From 1882 in which year fifty two were lynched down to the present lynching has been along the color line Mob murder increased yearly until in 1892 more than two hundred victims were lynched and statistics show tht 3 284 men women and children have been put to death in this quarter of a century During the last ten years from 1899 to 1908 inclusive the number lynched was 959 Of this number 102 were white while the colored victims numbered 857 No other nation civilized or savage burns its criminals only under that Stars and Stripes is the human holocaust possible Twenty eight human beings burned at the stake one of them a woman and two of them children is the awful indictment against American civilization the gruesome tribute which the nation pays to the color line Why is mob murder permitted by a Christian nation What is the cause of this awful slaughter This question is answered almost daily always the same shameless falsehood that Negroes are lynched to protect womanhood Standing before a Chautauqua assemblage John Temple Graves at once https www blackpast org african american history 1909 ida b wells awful slaughter 7 26 2020 3 21 52 PM 1909 Ida B Wells Lynching Our National Crime champion of lynching and apologist for lynchers said The mob stands today as the most potential bulwark between the women of the South and such a carnival of crime as would infuriate the world and precipitate the annihilation of the Negro race This is the never varying answer of lynchers and their apologists All know that it is untrue The cowardly lyncher revels in murder then seeks to shield himself from public execration by claiming devotion to woman But truth is mighty and the lynching record disc1oses the hypocrisy of the lyncher as well as his crime The Springfield Illinois mob rioted for two days the militia of the entire state was called out two men were lynched hundreds of people driven from their homes all because a white woman said a Negro assaulted her A mad mob went to the jail tried to lynch the victim of her charge and not being able to find him proceeded to pillage and burn the town and to lynch two innocent men Later after the police had found that the woman s charge was false she published a retraction the indictment was dismissed and the intended victim discharged But the lynched victims were dead Hundreds were homeless and Illinois was disgraced As a final and complete refutation of the charge that lynching is occasioned by crimes against women a partial record of lynchings is cited 285 persons were lynched for causes as follows Unknown cause 92 no cause 10 race prejudice 49 miscegenation 7 informing 12 making threats 11 keeping saloon 3 practicing fraud 5 practicing voodooism 1 refusing evidence 2 political causes 5 disputing 1 disobeying quarantine regulations 2 slapping a child 1 turning state s evidence 3 protecting a Negro 1 to prevent giving evidence 1 knowledge of larceny 1 writing letter to white woman 1 asking white woman to marry 1 jilting girl 1 having smallpox 1 concealing criminal 2 threatening political exposure 1 self defense 6 cruelty 1 insulting language to woman 5 quarreling with white man 2 colonizing Negroes 1 throwing stones 1 quarreling 1 gambling 1 Is there a remedy or will the nation confess that it cannot protect its protectors at home as well as abroad Various remedies have been suggested to abolish the lynching infamy but year after year the butchery of men women and children continues in spite of plea and protest Education is suggested as a preventive but it is as grave a crime to murder an ignorant man as it is a scholar True few educated men have been lynched but the hue and cry once started stops at no bounds as was clearly shown by the lynchings in Atlanta and in Springfield Illinois Agitation though helpful will not alone stop the crime Year after year statistics are published meetings are held resolutions are adopted and yet lynchings go on Public sentiment does https www blackpast org african american history 1909 ida b wells awful slaughter 7 26 2020 3 21 52 PM 1909 Ida B Wells Lynching Our National Crime measurably decrease the sway of mob law but the irresponsible bloodthirsty criminals who swept through the streets of Springfield beating an inoffensive law abiding citizen to death in one part of the town and in another torturing and shooting to death a man who for threescore years had made a reputation for honesty integrity and