1997 Abstracts
Aleen J. Ratzlaff, University of Florida, “IDA B. WELLS: CRUSADER AGAINST LYNCH LAW, 1892-1894”
This paper focuses Ida B. Wells and the first years of her anti-lynching campaign in the 1890s, a time in U.S. history when, in the midst of extreme and overt racism, the greatest number of recorded lynchings occurred. Particular incidents, such as the murders of her close friends, compelled Wells to undertake the battle against lynch law. Wells realized silence sanctioned lynching. At times risking her life, she determined to use the media to bring the issue out into the open. Her goal was to thrust the issue of mob law into the public arena through mainstream and Black newspapers in an effort to confront an indifferent American populace with its racist rationale for lynching Black men. She developed strategies that provoked mainstream newspapers to grapple with racial and gender stereotypes, which were deeply ingrained and had fostered a prevailing sentiment of tolerance for lynching in the late-nineteenth century.
In her writings and lectures, Wells systematically challenged the common defense used by whites to justify lynching Black men--the rape of white women. Wells maintained that such allegations served as emotional leverage to support the practice. Building her case around a litany of documented incidents, Wells argued that white women who charged Black men with rape often had participated willingly in those relationships until their liaison became known by others in the surrounding community. Two trips to England generated reaction and controversy from the white press in the United States. Following Wells's return from England, she went on the lecture circuit in the United States. Public reaction to Wells's message put her in the center of controversy, a position she used to help advance her cause. Wells had garnered the attention of mainstream newspapers. Unfortunately, despite her activism and the decline of lynching from its peak year in 1892, lynching continued well into the 1930s.
