Ida B. Wells Quotes

• Although lynchings have steadily increased in number and barbarity during the last twenty years, there has been no single effort put forth by the many moral and philanthropic forces of the country to put a stop to this wholesale slaughter.

  Ida B. Wells

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Single, Increased, Number

• Brave men do not gather by thousands to torture and murder a single individual, so gagged and bound he cannot make even feeble resistance or defense.

  Ida B. Wells

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Murder, Single

• I came home every Friday afternoon, riding the six miles on the back of a big mule. I spent Saturday and Sunday washing and ironing and cooking for the children and went back to my country school on Sunday afternoon.

  Ida B. Wells

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Home, Afternoon, School

• I had an instinctive feeling that the people who have little or no school training should have something coming into their homes weekly which dealt with their problems in a simple, helpful way… so I wrote in a plain, common-sense way on the things that concerned our people.

  Ida B. Wells

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in People, Problems, Feeling, Training

• If this work can contribute in any way toward proving this, and at the same time arouse the conscience of the American people to a demand for justice to every citizen, and punishment by law for the lawless, I shall feel I have done my race a service.

  Ida B. Wells

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in American, Punishment, Conscience

• In fact, for all kinds of offenses – and, for no offenses – from murders to misdemeanors, men and women are put to death without judge or jury; so that, although the political excuse was no longer necessary, the wholesale murder of human beings went on just the same.

  Ida B. Wells

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Political, Necessary, Human

• No nation, savage or civilized, save only the United States of America, has confessed its inability to protect its women save by hanging, shooting, and burning alleged offenders.

  Ida B. Wells

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Inability, Protect, Nation

• Our country’s national crime is lynching. It is not the creature of an hour, the sudden outburst of uncontrolled fury, or the unspeakable brutality of an insane mob.

  Ida B. Wells

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in National, Crime, Brutality

• Somebody must show that the Afro-American race is more sinned against than sinning, and it seems to have fallen upon me to do so.

  Ida B. Wells

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in American, Against

• The Afro-American is not a bestial race.

  Ida B. Wells

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in American, Race

• The Afro-American is thus the backbone of the South.

  Ida B. Wells

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in American

• The alleged menace of universal suffrage having been avoided by the absolute suppression of the negro vote, the spirit of mob murder should have been satisfied and the butchery of negroes should have ceased.

  Ida B. Wells

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Avoided, Universal

• The appeal to the white man’s pocket has ever been more effectual than all the appeals ever made to his conscience.

  Ida B. Wells

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Appeal, Conscience

• The city of Memphis has demonstrated that neither character nor standing avails the Negro if he dares to protect himself against the white man or become his rival.

  Ida B. Wells

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Character, Himself, Protect

• The mob spirit has grown with the increasing intelligence of the Afro-American.

  Ida B. Wells

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Spirit, Increasing, American

• The negro has suffered far more from the commission of this crime against the women of his race by white men than the white race has ever suffered through his crimes.

  Ida B. Wells

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Commission, Crime, Suffered

• The only times an Afro-American who was assaulted got away has been when he had a gun and used it in self-defense.

  Ida B. Wells

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in American, Used, Defense

• The nineteenth century lynching mob cuts off ears, toes, and fingers, strips off flesh, and distributes portions of the body as souvenirs among the crowd.

  Ida B. Wells

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Century, Portions

• The people must know before they can act, and there is no educator to compare with the press.

  Ida B. Wells

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in People, Compare

• The South is brutalized to a degree not realized by its own inhabitants, and the very foundation of government, law and order, are imperilled.

  Ida B. Wells

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Government, Foundation, Realized

Ida B. Wells (26)

Birth:	16th July, 1862
Death:	25th March, 1931
Nationality:	American
Profession:	Activist, Journalist

About

Ida Bell Wells-Barnett documented lynching in the United States, showing how it was often a way to control or punish blacks who competed with whites, often under the guise of rape charges. She was active in women's rights and the women's suffrage movement, establishing several notable women's organizations. Wells was a skilled and persuasive rhetorician, and traveled internationally on lecture tours.

Related Authors

• David Korten
• Ramsey Clark
• Charles W. Colson
• Kenneth E. Boulding
• Roger Nash Baldwin
• Cornel West
• Henry Rollins
• Millicent Fawcett
• Caroline Norton
• Heather Mills

Advertisement

Today's Anniversary - 7th October

Births

• 1967 - Toni Braxton
• 1854 - Christiaan Rudolf de Wet
• 1955 - Yo-Yo Ma
• 1885 - Niels Bohr
• 1934 - Ulrike Meinhof

Deaths

• 1993 - Agnes de Mille
• 1993 - Cyril Cusack
• 1796 - Thomas Reid
• 1967 - Norman Angell
• 1922 - Marie Lloyd