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An Account Of The Lynchings By Ida B. Wells

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Recommended: The history of racism in the south

Ida B. Wells wrote this document as a result of the lynchings of Thomas Moss, Calvin McDowell, and Henry Stewart, and this case was significant to Miss Wells because she personally knew the victims. These colored men owned and operated a successful grocery store in an area that had a competing grocery store owned by a white man. Due to the economic tension between the two stores, a white band caused a stir and had over one hundred black men dragged into jail on suspicion. Moss, McDowell, and Stewart were charged of raping white women. Because of these accusations, these black men were lynched. This prompted Wells to look further and investigate these so-called accusations. Who was the intended audience? In the late 1800s, Wells documented these lynchings, yet she published this for her audience in 1970, regardless of the dangerous effects that this task could do to a colored woman in the 70s. During the Civil War, whites in the north thought that they were bettering the lives of slaves by destroying the institution of slavery because it was un-Christian. The northern whites were in denial about the lynchings. The rate of violence increased significantly after the Civil War, so instead, Wells …show more content…

Wells witnessed this during Jim Crow South, and she went through and tracked all of these rape accusations in the South, and the only time when an accusation came forward was when there was competition and a lynching. Lynchings were used for white men to show control over black men due to economic tension. Ku Klux Klan offenses happened only during economic downturns. These rape cases were very common among the south, yet rape was being used as an excuse for white men to show control over white women. What the white men think that they can do for themselves, white women cannot do. This is the center of all the violence. Everyone during that time knew that rape and lynchings were scapegoats for white men to show dominance over everyone else— blacks and white

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