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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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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
Heart
Mouthpiece
Way
Lynching
Told
Story
Often
Tell
Makes
Stories
Embellish

More quotes by 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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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 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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There is nothing we can do about the lynching now, as we are out-numbered and without arms.
Ida B. Wells
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It is extremely rough to follow through with my goals, but I felt a responsibility to show the world what the African Americans are facing through this rough patch.
Ida B. Wells
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The appetite grows for what it feeds on.
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.
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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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.
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 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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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
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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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One had better die fighting against injustice than die like a dog or a rat in a trap.
Ida B. Wells
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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.
Ida B. Wells
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Lynching is color line murder.
Ida B. Wells
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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
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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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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