How The Speech Portrayed In Southern Horrors, By Ida B. Wells

During the 90s of the nineteenth century hundreds of African Americans were persecuted and lynched regardless if they committed a crime or not. These atrocities got the attention with major African American leaders and writers including Ida B. Wells. She wrote a pamphlet called Southern Horrors, an autobiography detailing the many accounts of lynching used during her time. Wells even went to England, Scotland, and Wales to appeal to the people against lynching by making speeches and meeting with leaders to help ease the burden of colored people and stop lynching. To convince her audience, she recalled several primary sources from accounts of lynchings and court records, even going to the United Kingdom to make speeches to help her cause. Her

All across the country there were several news articles related to rape charges against African Americans regardless if they had intention to do so or not. One Memphis paper talks about an African American “found in a white woman’s room in that city. Although she made no outcry of rape, he was jailed and would have been lynched” (p. 51). In Wells A Red Record, she used a record from the Chicago Tribune. Within the record it has 132 African Americans that have been lynched and with serval charges that called for them to be lynched (p. 78). Wells used the record to illustrate the fact that many African Americans can lynched for any charge from suspicion to murder and rape. The angry mob can pursue lynching for any reason no matter the degree and can do it out of racial

Even after the abolishing of slavery African Americans in the south struggle with hardships with discrimination and segregation. And its because of this segregation that makes African Americans a target for lynching (p. 101). The goal for lynching is to remind the African American population in the south who is in charge and strike fear to prevent them from breaking away from this mold. Reformers like Wells tend to appeal to other countries like England to address their concerns about their home country. Their hope is with growing support from another country will encourage the country to address the concerns toward the designated country (p. 171). With reformers showing active participation across the world, it shows that the world is changing society for the