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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

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Ida B. Wells
Age: 68 †
Born: 1862
Born: July 16
Died: 1931
Died: March 25
Human Rights Activist
Journalist
Sociologist
Suffragette
Suffragist
Writer
Holly Springs
Mississippi
Ida B. Wells-Barnett
Ida Wells-Barnett
Ida Bell Wells
Ida Bell Wells-Barnett
Fingers
Strips
Ears
Nineteenth
Cutting
Cuts
Among
Toes
Century
Portions
Body
Crowd
Distributes
Crowds
Souvenirs
Flesh
Lynching

More quotes by Ida B. Wells

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The South is brutalized to a degree not realized by its own inhabitants, and the very foundation of government, law and order, are imperilled.
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I honestly believe I am the only woman in the United States who ever traveled throughout the country with a nursing baby to make political speeches.
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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.
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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.
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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
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The white man’s victory soon became complete by fraud, violence, intimidation and murder.
Ida B. Wells
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What becomes a crime deserving capital punishment when the tables are turned is a matter of small moment when the negro woman is the accusing party.
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The appetite grows for what it feeds on.
Ida B. Wells
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The mob spirit has grown with the increasing intelligence of the Afro-American.
Ida B. Wells
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The Afro-American is not a bestial race. If this work can contribute in any way towards 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. Other considerations are of minor importance.
Ida B. Wells
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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
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I am only a mouthpiece through which to tell the story of lynching and I have told it so often that I know it by heart. I do not have to embellish it makes its own way.
Ida B. Wells
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The South resented giving the Afro-American his freedom, the ballot box and the Civil Rights Law.
Ida B. Wells
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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
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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
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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
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The Afro-American is not a bestial race.
Ida B. Wells
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The doors of churches, hotels, concert halls and reading rooms are alike closed against the Negro as a man, but every place is open to him as a servant.
Ida B. Wells
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A Winchester rifle should have a place of honor in every black home.
Ida B. Wells
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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