Bøker av Ida B. Wells-Barnett

Mob Rule in New Orleans; Robert Charles and His Fight to Death, the Story of His Life, Burning Human Beings Alive, Other Lynching Statistics, a classical book, has been considered important throughout the human history, and so that this work is never forgotten we at Alpha Editions have made efforts in its preservation by republishing this book in a modern format for present and future generations. This whole book has been reformatted, retyped and designed. These books are not made of scanned copies of their original work and hence the text is clear and readable.

The Red Record tabulates these instances of cruelty in clear, impartial figures. Ida B. Wells' original goal for the brochure was to humiliate and shock the lethargic public-and spur change-alongside the total by describing actual instances of lynching and listing the common justifications for these arbitrary executions. The practice of lynching was so pervasive in the postbellum American South that the majority of Southern politicians and leaders chose to ignore it. This lethal brand of vigilante "justice" was really a thinly veiled racist justification for homicidal brutality. With charges ranging from "attempted stock poisoning" to "insulting whites," more than 200 African Americans were killed in 1892 alone. In order to let the dreadful statistics speak for themselves. The anti-lynching movement in the US was led by investigative journalist and activist Ida B. Wells, later Wells-Barnett. A Red Record used mainstream white newspapers to document a resurgence of white mob violence, building on her ground-breaking exposé Southern Horrors: Lynch Law in All Its Phases (1892), and discovered that more than 9,000 African Americans had been killed by lynching in the South between 1864 and 1894. The novel aimed to make space for one aspect of a crucial discussion about power, violence, and race in the US.

The investigative journalist and activist Ida B. Wells, later Wells-Barnett, spearheaded the anti-lynching movement in the United States. Expanding on her groundbreaking exposé Southern Horrors: Lynch Law in All Its Phases (1892), A Red Record used mainstream white newspapers to document a resurgence of white mob violence, finding that -more than 10,000 African Americans had been killed by lynching in the South between 1864 and 1894. Wells compiled statistics on alleged offenses and the geographic distribution and extent of lynching, and tied whites' increased brutality and violence to their fear of African Americans' increased political power. Her conclusion exhorts anti-lynching advocates to "tell the world the facts," for "When the Christian world knows the alarming growth and extent of outlawry in our land, some means will be found to stop it." (nypl.org)About the authorIda B. Wells (full name: Ida Bell Wells-Barnett) (July 16, 1862 - March 25, 1931) was an American investigative journalist, educator, and early leader in the civil rights movement. She was one of the founders of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP). Wells dedicated her lifetime to combating prejudice and violence, the fight for African-American equality, especially that of women, and became arguably the most famous Black woman in the United States of her time.Born into slavery in Holly Springs, Mississippi, Wells was freed by the Emancipation Proclamation during the American Civil War. At the age of 16, she lost both her parents and her infant brother in the 1878 yellow fever epidemic. She went to work and kept the rest of the family together with the help of her grandmother. Later, moving with some of her siblings to Memphis, Tennessee, Wells found better pay as a teacher. Soon, Wells co-owned and wrote for the Memphis Free Speech and Headlight newspaper. Her reporting covered incidents of racial segregation and inequality.In the 1890s, Wells documented lynching in the United States in articles and through her pamphlets called Southern Horrors: Lynch Law in all its Phases, and The Red Record, investigating frequent claims of whites that lynchings were reserved for Black criminals only. Wells exposed lynching as a barbaric practice of whites in the South used to intimidate and oppress African Americans who created economic and political competition-and a subsequent threat of loss of power-for whites. Well's pamphlet set out to tell the truth behind the rising violence in the South against African Americans. At this time, the White press continued to paint the African Americans involved in the incident as villains and Whites as innocent victims. Ida B. Wells was a respected voice in the African American community in the South that people listened to. Thus, Well's pamphlet was needed to show people the truth about this violence and advocate for justice for African Americans in the South. A white mob destroyed her newspaper office and presses as her investigative reporting was carried nationally in Black-owned newspapers. Subjected to continued threats, Wells left Memphis for Chicago. She married Ferdinand L. Barnett in 1895 and had a family while continuing her work writing, speaking, and organizing for civil rights and the women's movement for the rest of her life. (wikipedia.org)

"Wells...provided damning descriptions of the melee that claimed one too many black lives." -Concrete Demands: The Search for Black Power in the 20th Century (2014)"To Wells...the events at East St. Louis combined some of the worst racist elements...in three days of rioting, 39 African Americans were killed." -Ida B. Wells-Barnett and American Reform (2003)"Her account of the riot which included interviews with riot victims documenting the violent participation of both the National Guard and the East St. Louis police, helped spur a congressional investigation." -To Tell the Truth Freely: The Life of Ida B. Wells (2009)Who was to blame for the East St. Louis Massacre of 1917, a series of outbreaks race-related violence resulting in the deaths of from 40 to 250 African-Americans? Ida B. Wells answers this question in her once government-censored 1917 book "The East St. Louis Massacre." Another 6,000 blacks were left homeless and the burning and vandalism cost approximately $400,000 ($7,982,000 in 2020) in property damage.In describing the scene in East St. Louis, after she arrived in the aftermath of the riot, Wells writes: "No one molested me in my walk from the station to the City Hall, although I did not see a single colored person until I reached the City Hall building. I accosted the lone individual in soldier's uniform at the depot, a mere boy with a gun, and asked him if the governor was in town. When he said no, he had gone to Washington the night before, I asked how the situation was and he said, 'bad.' I asked what was the trouble and he said, 'The Negroes won't let the whites alone. They killed seven yesterday and three already this morning.'"The ferocious brutality of the attacks and the failure of authorities to protect innocent lives contributed to the radicalization of many blacks in St. Louis and the nation. Marcus Garvey, black nationalist leader of the UNIA from Jamaica, declared in a July 8 speech that the riot was "one of the bloodiest outrages against mankind" and a "wholesale massacre of our people", insisting that "This is no time for fine words, but a time to lift one's voice against the savagery of a people who claim to be the dispensers of democracy."In New York City on July 28, ten thousand black people marched down Fifth Avenue in a Silent Parade, protesting the East St. Louis Massacre. They carried signs that highlighted protests about the massacre.

Collection of three key documents written by Ida B. Wells describing shocking testaments to cruelty and the dark American legacy of racial prejudice.