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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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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
Every
Servant
Concert
Men
Racism
Negro
Doors
Churches
Rooms
Concerts
Open
Halls
Reading
Alike
Church
Closed
Place
Hotel
Hotels

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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.
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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.
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There is nothing we can do about the lynching now, as we are out-numbered and without arms.
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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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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.
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Virtue knows no color line.
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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.
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The mob spirit has grown with the increasing intelligence of the Afro-American.
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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.
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The Afro-American is not a bestial race.
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A Winchester rifle should have a place of honor in every black home.
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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.
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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.
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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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The appetite grows for what it feeds on.
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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.
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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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One had better die fighting against injustice than die like a dog or a rat in a trap.
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Lynching is color line 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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