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.
From Ida B. Wells
If this work can contribute in any way toward 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.
The people must know before they can act, and there is no educator to compare with the press.
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.
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.
Somebody must show that the Afro-American race is more sinned against than sinning, and it seems to have fallen upon me to do so.
The South is brutalized to a degree not realized by its own inhabitants, and the very foundation of government, law and order, are imperilled.
There is nothing we can do about the lynching now, as we are out-numbered and without arms.
Thus lynch law held sway in the far West until civilization spread into the Territories and the orderly processes of law took its place. The emergency no longer existing, lynching gradually disappeared from the West.
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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