Hass Communication

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CALIF'ORJ.\JIA STATE Ln'i'IVERSITY, NORTHRIDGE

THE CRUSADDJG,, PEN 01~ IDA B. HELLS"-BAPJmTT

A tl1esis S1Jbmitted :lr1 partial satisfaction. of the requirements for the degree of Haster tJf Arts in

Hass Communication

Carol Elizabc!tt Andreo:·JS ,.,...------·-

January, 197S The thesis of Carol Elizabeth AndrevJS is approved:

California State University, Northridge September, 1977

i:l. ACKNOl\fLEDGEHENTS

Thanks to Dr. H:i.chael Emery, Dr. Tom Reilly~ Oscar Sims of

UCLA) and Charlotte Oyer and the inter-library loan staff for their assistance.

Special thanks to Professor C. Boyd 3ames for the extra help he gave; to Ethel for introducing me to Ida B. ·Hells-Barnett; to

Linda for her advice; to Hom for her encouragement; cmd to Bill for his adv:i.ce, his encouragement and his patir'"ncP.

Special~ special thanks to vaphne and Kim for all the typing, xeroxing, etc.

:lii TABLE OF CONTENTS

Page

ACKN0\0'LEDGEHENTS • . iii

ABSTRACT . v

Chapter I: Introduction and Review of the Literature 1

Chapter II: Black History and the Black Press

Chapter III: Ida B. \'!ells-Barnett --- Early Years 52

Chapter IV: Free -"~-p_c::_e.ch and the Anti--Lynching Crusades 64

Chapter V: Ida B. Hells--Barnett During the Years 1895 - 1931 • • • . • • . . 99

Chapter VI: Conclusion--Ida B. Wells-Barnett's Influence • 126

BIBLIOGRAPHY . • • 155

APPENDIX .•• . . 168 I '

ABSTRACT

THE CRUSADING PEN OF IDA B. HELLS-BARNETT

Carol Elizabeth AndreHs

Haster of Arts in Hass Communications

January, 1978

Black women have played a part in the black press since its inception in 1827. Some black ~vomen journalists in the nineteenth century \vere particularly outstanding figures and included :Ln this group ~vas Ida B. Hells-Barnett. Ida B. Hells-Barnett, who lived from

1862 to 19 31, '"as often called ';Princess of the Black Press" and her voice was the strongest among journalists in the movement to stop lynchings. She wrote for numerous publications and she edited and ovmed two newspapers, the Hemphis yre~.-~'P.~!_€~ch and the Chicago Con

Sf:.rvator.

This thesis deals ,.;r:tth Hells-Barnett's various accomplishments and her activities ;:;re correlated Hith various people and events in

American history. The hi~; tory of the black press is discussed and the early years in He1ls-Barne.tt 7 s life are examined in an effort to deter mine the people/evcnts/c.ircumstances that most influenced her. Because her greatest ~vork Has in her fight to end lync:hings

in the United States, Hells-Barnett's anti.:.lynching arttcles are dis

cussed. From 1895 until her death in 1931 '.Jells-Barnett became in-

valved in mumerous civic activit:i.es. Though, her concerns during these years ~vere basically the same (an end to lynchings and the elevation of black people), she broadened her activities to include club ,.,ork, poli

tics and the women's movement.

Finally, an attempt is made to 1neasure Hells-Barnett's influ ence. Letters, biographies, autobiographies, books on the black press, ne\vspaper nnd magazine articles written by Hells-Barnett's contempora ries and various contemporary articles, as well as blacl<: history books

,,rere examined to determine her influence.

vi CHAPTER I

INTRODUCTION

Gerda Lerner, author of Bl~~~_J~-~~n i_!l___ ~\~?:_i_t:_('!_~!!:l__~~-ica, has said

that '' ... it is necessary to recognize that there is a female aspect

to all history, tha.t \vomen were there . • . . ,l It \vas with this

statement in m:lnd that the \vriter undertook the study of black \vomen in

journalism history.

Nany journalism history books have ignored the existence of 2 black journalists, and \vhen a special section on the black press is included in general journalism history books, black female Journalists are generally ignored. Horeover, books on black history and the black press, v7ith a few exceptionB, also have tended to ignore black vmmen journalists.3 This is unfortunate, especially when one realizes that several black women \vrote before the Civil Har and that black women have continued to play an important role in the development of black journalism.

In 1746, i.n a ballad entitled "Bars Fight,"4 Lucy Terry re- created an Indian massacre which occurred in Deersfield, Hassachusetts, during King George's Har. "Rars Fight" has been hailed by one his torian as "the best and most colored version [of the warl extant."5

The first blade \voman newspaper editor was Hary Ann Shadd Cary. She edited an abolitionist weekly, ].'he Provincial Fr~-~~~· from 1854 to

1856. In a representative sample of her work she encouraged black

1 2

6 people to "do more and talk less."· Hmv-ever, the -vwrk of these women and other black women journalists has been given little attention by his tod.ans. As Roland E. Holseley has \•Jri t ten, " . • . The \

tors and ,.,riters of the nineteenth century have been ignored, as jourrtalists? by almost all 'tvho have \vritten on black journalists .. '.1 7

B.~-~_!E:_ 1\me.r:!.:_~, wrote that by 1890 there \vere one hundred and thirty four black journalists in America. 8 Many of these were ,.,omen. Hhy are black \vomen journalists --· particularly those \vho wrote in the nineteenth century --- ignored by almost all who have written about black journalists? One author has explained:

Black women have been doubly victimized by scholarly neglect and racist assumptions. Belonging as they do to t\,7 0 groups \vh:i.ch hmre traditionally been treated as inferiors by American society -- Blacks and \vomen they have been doubly invisible. Their records lie buried, unread, infrequently noticed and even more seldom interpreted.9

The author's purpose in doing this study w·as to take one black l.Jornan journalist in history, Ida B. Hells-Barnett, point out her contributions, and make some judgment as to ~vhere she fits in in American history. Hells-Barnett, 1:

Press," "1as a black journalist -v;hose career spanned the years 1881~ to

1931. She believed that "there is no agency so potent as the press in reaching and elevating a people. "10 Sh·e owned, in partnership 1:vith tw·o men, the Hemphis Free Speech and she used this newspaper as a medium through wh:lch she could fight black oppression. This study \vill shmv that Hells-Barnett 1 s activities and ac-

complishments v1ere tied in 1vith important people and events in American

history~ Letters, black history books and books on the black press

-;.yere examined to determine \vhat other people thought about Hells-Rm:--

nett. Important to this study \vas Hells·-Rarnett 1 s autobiography; how-

ever, it lvas used sparingly since autobiographies are too often given

to praise and subjectivity.

Hells-Barnett is best kno\vn for the anti-lynching crusades

that she led in the late nineteenth and early t1ventieth centuries. 'T"e 11 .s-1',arnett ' s \vas t h e f.1rst c ff ect1ve. campa1.gn. aga:tnst . 1ync h. J.ng ll an d in a one-woman crusade, she \vrote numerous articles against the crime.

In addition, she detailed the horrors of lynching in a pamphlet called

A._!t~.i__~ecord, the first serious statistical treatment of lynching . 12

Through continuous agitation, \-Jells-Barnett brought the facts

about lynching to Europeans and Americans and as a res·ult of her lee-

tures and articles, anti-lynching leagues tvere formed in Great Britain

and in the United States. Some historians have credited Hells-Barnett tvith dec.reasing the number of lynchings in the United States after 13 1894. She was perhaps the only journalist to ask President :t-IcKinley

to enact federal legislation for the suppression of lynching. 14 Hm.;r-

ever, her efforts were stymied by the federal government's refusal to

interfere in ,,,hat was termed a "state matter."

Several historians have pictur.ed Ida B. Hells-Barnett as a

fiery, fearless, resolute woman who walked the streets of Nemphis tvith 15 two guns strapped to her waist and she repeatedly urged Blacks to arm

themselves. 16 In addition, editors and authors from the 1880s to the 4

present have agnin and again characterized- Hells--Barnett as militant, couragt~ous, d{-_> termined, impassioned, outspoken and aggressive. An editorial in the New York .!:~ described her as "eloquent, logical and dead in earnest."17 Roland E. Holseley has Hritten that she is pos- sibly t:he one black ~;-roman journalist of the nineteenth century still remembered in the tHentieth century. 18

The fo11mv-ing are typical comments ~v-ritten about ~.Jells-Bar- nett by her contemporaries. Of ~\fells--Barnett's skill as a journalist,

T. 11wmas Fortune, editor of the Ne"t'l york Ag~, a successful black newspaper begun in 1887, wrote:

She has become famous as one , • • who handles a goose quill with diamond point as easily as any man in the newspaper ~v-ork. If lola [Hells-Barnett's pen name] was a man, she would be a humming independent in politics. She has plenty of nerve and is as sharp as a·steel trap.l9

Lucy H. Smith, another journalist of the period, said of Hells--

Barnett: "Ida B. Hells has been called the 'Princess of the Black 20 Press,' and she has \vell earned the title. "

Hhat distinguished Hells-Barnett from other black women journalists? Hells-Barnett \vas a black militant espousing black pride, unity and power long before it became fashionable in the 1960s. She was distrustful of w'hites and ~v-arned Blacks to be~'lare ~v-hen dealing \vith them. Hells-Barnett once said to the black members of the NAACP: "They are betraying us again -- these white friends of ours. "21 Hov1ever, she didn't hesitate to go to influential Hhites when she needed help in

Hghting injustices. 5

Frequently using the press as a tool, l-Jells-J~arnett fought injustice wherever she perceived it. She challenged racial discrimination at the VJorld 1 s Columbian Exposition in Chicago in 1893, dis en fran- chisement of Blacks~ and segregation. She encouraged and helped organize the Hemphis boycott of 1892. This boycott was one of the first examples of a method of resistance >vhich later groups -- the NAACP and

SNCC -- perfected¢ John Hope Franklin, a noted black historian, has written that nfew defects in American society escaped her notice and 22 her outrage."

In 1940, a lou->rent housing project in Chicago -vras named after 23 her. Hells-Barnett has often been call~d the "Mother of Negro

>wmen 1 s clubs, 1124 and some -v10men 1 s groups and schools cm~ry her name today. In addition to her other activities, Hells-Barnett helped found the Habash YHCA and she led the fight for Chicago's first black alder- man and congressman.

Ida B. vjells-Barnett has been compared to many prominent historical figures, from Hrs. Frank Leslie, >vife of the editor of Frank

Leslie's Illustrated Ne~vsnaper, 25 to Anna Dickinson,26 to Joan of Arc~ 7 from Fannie J. Coppin, another black journalist and educator in the 28 nineteenth century, to Fannie B. Hilliams, black Hriter, organizer and agitator.

To afford a general knmvledge of the history of the black press w·hich v1ill help to determine Hells-Barnett's importance to black journalism, the second chapter of this thesis deals with black history and the black press. 6

The third chapter is concerned with the early years in the life of Ida B. Hells-Barnett. Facts about her life such as family background, birthplace, and educational training ~.;ere vieHed here as

Hell as some of her earliest Hritings.

The fourth chapter of the thesis deals Hith Hells-Barnett's

Hork on the _!'_!'ee S~~_ch, the paper she mvned along with Rev. F. Night ingale and .J. L. Fleming; and the anti-lynching crusadc~s that she initiated :tn the United States and abroad. Essential to this section

-.;.;ere samples of her anti-lynching articles.

The fifth chapter exan1ines other activities that ~,:ells-Bar nett involved herself with ht~tween the ye&rs 1895 and 1931, including her participation in the \vomen' s club movements, the Negro Fellowship

League and the NAACP.

The sixth chapter is concerned with examining Hhat others - particularly those persons and institutions that might be termed "his torically signifi-cant" -- thought of Hells-Barnett. Editorials in the

Ne,., York Age, the NeH· Y()r~ T~me_§_ and the Memphi_::;_ _D~_ily__~~m~_!__g.al Here examined as \vell as letters \vritten by VJar Department officials in the early part of the tHentieth century.

Throughout the thesis, major people and events in American hi.story are discussed and correlated 'vith Hells-Barnett's activities in an effort to shmv her significance in American history.

As a supplement to this study, there is a list of black women journalists, for the period of 1827 to the NeH Deal, for anyone -v1ho might ,.,ish to carry this study further. 7

Review of the Literature

Many books have been written on black history and the black press and some of these books are outstanding as presentations of several phases of black history and the black press. Too oft.en, · though, these books lack adequate treatment of black women. 1 Some of these books contain material by and/or about black \vomen journalists particularly Ida B. ~.Jells-Barnett -- but, for the most part, this 2 mater1a. 1 1s . very s k etc h y an d d'1SJOlntc0. . . l

Another problem ,.,ri th these books t-ms that too often the writing was very one-sided. Hany of the writers -- particularly the earliest \vriters and the editors of anthologil~s and documentary his- tories -- seemed to be satisfied \vith presenting only the facts that best suited their mvn vic\·lpoints. Nany times the authors' purpose l·Jas to get some form of black history recorded in an effort to shovl that black people do have an admirable and significant history. The authors seemed to realize a need to define the black person's link \vith his/he.r past and to develop some sense of racial pride and unity among black people. For these reasons, these authors avoided criticism of: their subje.cts. The earliest vlri ters, in particular, published volurneg praising the achievements of black people. This approach may have been necessary at one time, but the time has come when black \vr:lters and hi.stor:Lans can feel secure enough to interpret; criticize and evaluate.

Another observation ''"as that though the treatment of black

'"omen journalists in most of these books was inadequate, black women enjoyed a more thorough treatment in books on the black press than 3

white ~.;ramen have in standard _journalism history texts. One reason for

this might be that black ~vomen w·ere more active in journalism than white t..-romen.

The black tvoman has alw·ays been an activist. 3 During slavery,

the black '"oman, in spite of her life of drudgery and her responsi- bilities as the head of the slave family, still found the strength to protest slavery. According to Ernestein Halker, an historian of the black \voman, "In the numerous insurrections and frequent harrassment of slave mvners, involving everything from hunger strikes. to arson, black 4 vmman played their part. "

Journalist, Frances Ellen l.Jatkins Harper, Hrote of Hhat she observed of the condition of black women during Reconstruction: "The

Homan as a class are quite equal to the men in energy and executive ability ••• In different departments of business, coloured \vomen have not only been enabled to keep the \volf from the door, but also to acquire property, and in some cases, the coloured woman is the mainstay o f th e f ann.1 y. .. s

Pauli Hurray, author and co-founder of the National Organiza- tion for l-Jomen, has said that "Black women have not only stood shoulder

to shoulder-with-b-rack-men-±n-every-ph-as-e-of-the-s-t.:-rugg±e,-but-they·------have often continued to stand firmly.when their men were destroyed by 116 it.

The black woman has rarely been forced into the role of "stay- at-·home-and-be-cared-for. 11 Ernestein \\Talker has written, 11 No con- cessions were made to the black woman because of sex, as \vas routine 7 in the case of the white Homan." The black woman has traditionally 9

fought for her rights as a black person and as a woman, and perhaps most important, she has ah.rays had to work: Her \vorking has often been a matter of survival for the black man as \vell as herself. Even the education of the black uoman differed from that of the vThi te \·lOman in that it was not meant to be ornamental, but Has intended to fit her for a profession, a life of service or both. 8 Black women in the nine teenth century were especially active in educational institutions and

1'uplift" organizations dating from the early post~.;rar period. For example~ in 1896, at a time \vhen lynchings were on the increase, black

\vomen formed the National Association of Colored Homen in Hash:Lngton,

D. C. 9 and protested crimes againBt Blacks.

Consequently, bec.ause the black \voman' s role in history has been so active, the black woman journalist has not been an umfamiliar figure to some historians of the black press.

I have divided the sources revieHed during the literature search into nine categories: (1) primary sources -- articles, books, and pamphlets by Ida B. 'vells-Barnett and articles and letters vrritten about Hells Barnett; (2) general black history books; (3) books on the black press: (4) \vomen' s journalism history books: (5) books by or about black women; (6) general journalism history books; (7) nineteenth century American history books: (8) theses and dissertations; and (9) various related articles.

_!ri~ary

Cru~~de _!_9_1:'_-!ust:i.S:~~---·_]:da _B~_t!_ellslO is the autobiography of Hells

P.an1ett edited by Alfreda Duster. It is well-written, interesting and 10

essential t:o this study. VJells·-Barnett told about the major events in her life and offered some insight into her character and personality.

This book Has also very useful as a general history hook as many historical events were dealt with, including the emergence of the NMCP,

'-Jorld Har I and the East St. Louis Riot of 1917.

In 1969, Arno Press and the Ne\v York Times reprinted three of

Hells··· Barnett's pn.mphlets in O~..J2nchings_. 11 These pamphlets \.Jere "A

Red Record," in which Hells·-Barnett documented the high occurrence of lynch:i.ngs in the United States during the 1880s and the 1890s; "South ern Horrors, u in \vhich she listed lynch victims and gave examples of racist southern papers that encouraged lynchings; and "Hob Rule in Ne,:-:r

Orleans" where Hells-Barnett discussed the mentality of the mob and the forces that movtivated it.

Several articles v1ere examined that ,,,ere 'vritten hy HE:~lls--Bar· nett. In "Lynching and the Excuse for It," _Independent, Hay Hi, 1901, pp. 1133-1136, Hells-Barnett talked about the h:l.gh occurrence of lynch··· ings in the United States and the excuses that \vere given for them.

This is an important, representative sample of her work.

In "lola's Southern Field," Th~_B!!:~~__I9rk__ Age, November 19,

1892, lola [Hells-Barnett's pen name) discussed ways in which black people could uplift themselves. She encouraged them to stop \vasting money, to save their pennies because" • • • \vhen he [the black person] has movey t and plenty of it, parties and races \vill become his servant~'

In "The Reason l\by the Colored American Is Not in the Horld' s

Columbian Exposition,"12 Hells-Barnett discussed the unfair treatment given to black people in the United States in spite of the many contri- 11

butions they have made to knerica.

In "Senator Bruce," _'!'h~I~~!!.Yc:~rk A~ge, SE~ptember 12, 1891, and

11 "Senator Bruce and the Race, The .J'_~e.~.::._J:.~!'J~~&~) August 8, 1891, Hells-·

Barnett lambasted then ex-Senator Blanche K. Bruce for his failure to

stand up for the rights of black people. "Senator Bruce and the Race" was particularly enlightening because the NeH Jorj<:__!:ge criticized

Wells-Barnett's attack on Bruce.

l.Jells-Barnett wrote "The Jim Crow Car -- A Homan 1 s Opinion of

the Infamous Thing11 for the August 8, 1891, edition of the Ne1-:__2'_?rk

!'>Jlf':..· In this article she urged blaek people to uni.te to eliminate separate cars. She pointed out that even a handful of people united for a cause could be powerful.

In "The Negro's Case in Equity, 11 The Independent 52, Apr::i.l 26s

1900, pp. 1010·-1011, Wells-Barnett answered an appeal pubHshed in a prior volume of the Inde_peg!]ent. The appeal called for black editors, preachers and teachers to tell their people to defend the lmvs and their rights, but to never be guilty of participation in lynching white man or black. Hells-Barnett answered that since it \vas white people who were committing the great majority of lynchings, then the Hhite editors, preachers and teachers of the country should charge themselves

\vith the task of preaching about the horrors and inj ustlce of lynching.

In 1893 and 1894 Hells-Barnett crusaded in Europe against lynch law in the United States. She co:nsistently ~vrote articles for the Chi_cag_2_lnter,:.=.Ocean in a column, nlda B. ~\Tells Abroad,nl3 wherein she described her crusade and reprinted European articles that dis cussed her \YOrk. 12

"Our Country's Lynching Record" was published in Surv~y_}1_a_v:~-

~=~~' February 1, 1913, pp; 573-57ll. A common technique used by Hells--

Barnett in her articles -- particularly the ones in 1:vhich she denounced lynching ---· \vas that of supporting her statements 1:vith statistics, especially the statistics and records compiled by white men to further verify that vlhat she said ,.,as true. This is a well-written, well-docu- · mented article -- emotional, hut controlled.

In "I-Im-T Enfranchisement Stops Lynching:," Original Rights Haga- --...... ---~------~------_?::_ine_, June, 1910, l.Jells-Barnett gave an account of the lynchings of two men in Cairo, Illinois, one \.Jhite and one black. She urate not as an outsid,~r, but as one \>Jho had investigating the lynchings herself, in-·· terviewing the people of Cairo and examining the files o.f every ne,v's- paper in the city published during the lynchings. ~\fells-'Barnet t con·- eluded the article believing t[,at as the result of a decision to per-· manently suspend the sheriff ~-;rho had allm-1ed the lynchings, that lynch-- ing had been. given its death blo\>7 in Illinois.

In "Lynch Latv in America" ~r~a 23 (January 1900), p. 15 and

11 Lynch Law i.n All Its Phases" Our ~Day 65 (Nay 1893), pp. 333-347, i>Jells-

Barnett again pointed to the fallacy that black men rape 'vhite Homen.

She gave graphic accounts of several lynchings and urged the American people to do something to stop the crime, suggesting that it would be to evt:'t'yone' s advantage if the crimes \vere stopped.

In "Booker T. Pashington and His Critics" Horld Today 6 (April

1904), p. 518, Hells-Barnett criticized Booker T. Washington for his accommodationism. \.Jells-Barnett's speech during the National Negro Conference

o f l< 9.091'+ suggests t h at s h e l1a d muc1l t o no ' H:L . th t1 1e f orma t.:ton o f th e

NAACP and their subsequent investigations of lynchings. Hells-Barnett

said:

• • • it \Wuld be a beginning in the right direction if this conference can see its way clear to estimate a bureau for the investigation and publicity of the details of lynching, so that the public could knm.;r that an influential body of citizens was making it a duty to give the widest publicity to the facts in each case, that it Hill make an effort to secure expressions of opinion all over the coun try against lynching for the sake vf the country's fair name, and lastly, but by no means least, to try to influ ence the daily papers of the country to refuse to become accessory to mobs eithr;r before or after the fact.l5

Articles written about Hells~·Barnett -- particularly those

articles written during her lifetime --were essential to this study.

A Ne'" Yorl0it~~~- editori·al~ July 27, 1894, })• 4, called Hells-Barnett

11 1 1 the • • • mulatress who has been stumping the British Islands to set

forth brutality o~ Southern Hhite men and the unchastity and untruth-

fulness of Southern Hhi te 'vomen . This article is very sarcastic

in tone and critical of Hells-Barnett's anti-lynching crusades.

An article j_n the New York Age, July 25, 1891, described

1 11 \<. ells-Barnett as It eloquent 9 logical and dead in earnest. In the Times

(London), November 9, 1894, p. 15, Hilliam Lloyd Garrison praised

1892 through 1894 'vere critical of Hells-Barnett. Hany articles in the ]...j._tera~if?_est deal extensively ~-lith Hells-Barnett's ~vork and the writers had much to say about Wells-Barnett's influence.

Moreover, Lit~E

16 and European nevmpapers that commented on Fells-Barnett's influence .

Finally, of primary importance to this study, are materials from the National Archives in Hashington D. C. In a transcript of a meeting of the Baltimore branch of the Universal Negro Improvement As sociation and African Communities League, held at Bethel A. }i. E.

Church, December 18, 1918, }!arie Madre Marshall said in her introduc tion of Hells-Barnett: "Ida Hells-Barnett has never held her mouth.

You knolv of her visits to the Hhite House year in and year out •..

It can be said without successful contradiction that she is the most fearless and outspoken speaker or champi.on that the race has produced."

(RG 165, Records of the 1var 0epartment, General and Special Staffs).

John M. Dunn in a letter to Emmett J. Scott discussed a meet ing that was to be addressed by Wells-Barnett. He stated, "The meeting

• ~vill be covered by a rep::-esentative from this office. "(John M.

Dunn to Emmett J. Scott, December 21, 1918, RG 165, Records of the \

Department, General and Special Staffs).

On December 21, 1918s Hrisley Brown, Najor, A.S.M.A. reported to Lieutenant Colonel Pakenham that "It is reported to this office that

Ida B. Hells-Barnett is considered a far more dangerous agitator than

Harcus Garvey." (RG 165, Records of the Har Department, General and

Special Staffs).

Major ~f. H. Loving, P.C., ~vrote to the Director of Military

Intelligence on December 20, 1918, that "It \vas announced hm..rever, that she [Hells-Barnett] Hould r open up' in a speech • • at Regent Theatre,

Baltimore. I shall send an operative. to take her speech and report any further development • • • I recommended that especial attention be 15

given this subject's record before a passport is granted her." (RG 165,

Records of the War Department, General and Special Staffs).

s;eg~r?._!__A_~~ck _D_:!-stoE.Y_

Several books in this category included material on Ida n. Hells-Bar- nett. Arna Bon temps, recognizing ~.,'ells-Barnett's influence in moving blac:k people from Hemphis, Tennessee to the North, ·Hrote a biographical piece on her in Anyplace But Here. 17 Herbert Aptheker included some of

Hells-Barnett 1 s essays and articles in his Docum~ntary I.!J:~-!_~ of ·-~he 18 Negro People in the United States. This is a fascinating book as

Aptheker collected many unusual documents that told the story of black people in history. Homen were not ignored, and Aptheker even included an article from an 1827 issue of Free_

ProtE!st19 by Bradford Chambers includeds forty-t'..ro documents relating to black protest. One of these documents is an abstract from a Ne'''

York J-n~endent article on lynching by Ida B. Hells-Barnett. This book would have been more valuable if there had been more in-depth analyses of the documents included. Saunders Redding's J~o~_e_so_JE~oad.:_ 20 The Story of the Negro in America is an interpretive history on being black in America. Redding included some interesting material on Hells

Barnett and some speculation as to hm-1 effective her ,.,riting \vas. This book was a change from the mere stating. of "facts" that many hi.storians seem to be comfortable Hith. Instead of stati.ng simple facts and sta- tis tics about vJells-Barnett Is life ~..rhere she was born, in ~-1hat year, etc. -- and being comfortable \vi th a 11 Ida B. Hells-Barnett ~vas a great 16

w·oman," Redding had insight into Hhat Has l.1appening with Blacks in

America during Hells··Barnett 1 s lifetime and because of this he could

make judgments about Hells--Barnett 1 s effectiveness as a propagandist

Hriter. He seemed to feel that Hells--Barnett v!as unable to move

people to action in the T.vay that she \van ted.

Pr_9_Ce

founding of the NAACP and includes a speech made by Hells-Barnett

during the 1909 conference. Hilton Heltzer edited three volumes of

articles, speeches, resolutions, essays and letters by black people in

In__ Tr~i~ivn ~lords_:_..:~Bis_!~.lc_)~_.EJ the. Am

_!_2_!2_::__]._2}§.=..-~?§6_._22 This collection Has valuable for an understanding of hmv one group of black people Here affected by major events in history.

Homen writers, including Hells-Barnett and Frances Ellen ~,!atkins Harper,

~vere given some representation. Each volume includes a calendar of black history \vhich allov-led the reader to put the various selections

into perspective.

The Negro in American History~.l:.?J.ste of Freedom! 185_~--=-1?_27 23 edited by Hortimer J. Adler, Charles Van Doren and George Ducas is an extensive collection of essays~ songst letters and speeches by black and white 'vriters. The collection includes a selection by Hells-Bar- nett.

Benjamin Brcnvley' s ~rQ._ Bt!:ilcl_ers .an4__ H~r..9es 24 includes brief .. - biographies of a few black women, although this book 'vas concerned mainly vlith great men in history. Even though this book is more con·- cerned \vith men, the author still seemed to make more of an effort, in

1937, than many historians did in later years, to include black women 17

in his collection.

Joanne Grant's Black Protest: History, Documents and Analvses- ---·-~-~------~~------··'":·-·- ---

l6l~ __t_~_~l]-~- P1~_~s_en~25 is a history of the black prates t movement, told

through a collection of documents. The v1r:L ter had hoped that this book

\vould include more material hy black Homen journalists since black 26 women have ahmys been at the forefront of protest movements. As it was, only one black female journalist ~vas represented. This book lvas

important, though, because this study deals \vith black protest move-

ments, particularly those that involved Hells-Barnett and other black

women.

general black history book, useful mainly as a background source. Un-

fortunately, the author L1cluded no significant material on black Homen

journalists.

Hells-Barnett spent most of her life in Chicago. In Black

plores tbe history of the black community in Chicago. Spear dealt \vith

major issues facing black Chicagoans and esflecially important to this

study were his discussions of Hells-Barnett's activities in Chicago.

29 !:: Bio_graphic9-l His tory of Blac}c_~ _:!:_n_;i\E!_e_~'!_£a__ ?ince_)_5~ is

based on a series of articles that appeared weekly in Th~__ Ql_J::_~~'?_t:J.-an

Science ~()E_!_tor:_, }larch 6 - June 12, 1969 by Edgar A. Toppin. The book

traces the lives of black Americans from their African backgrounds to

1971. The author made a commendable effot to make the past come alive

in this creative work that also introduced theories of contemporary

scholars. Each chapter includes an extensive bibliography. The final 18

section is a collection of biographies of notable black Americans.

The "notable black Americans" \vere listed by field and no ivomen 1-1ere included under "publishing and editing. 11 lvells-Barnett yJas represented; hm.rever) Toppin chose to classify her as "anti-lynching crusader."

Other hooks in this catep;ory included sketchy material on black women ~-Jriters. Eve\~itness30 edited by Filliam L. Katz is com- -~---··"--- posed of eyewitness accounts of black history,_ dra1m from letters, army records, travel accounts, neHspapers and magazines. Some material by and/or about black Homen w-riters is included, but Katz should have included more. Some of the material lacked significance and it Has difficult to see \vhy it \vas included when more important material was ignored. Peter H. Bergman collected facts about black veople in his-

tl1e I"egror 1n• Amer1.ca. . 31 For short, concise background data on black women and the black press, this book \vas helpful.

In Jh~_Q:r.. a.t.Q..t:y_Q.f Ng_gJ;:p__ J,ggQ..er$_._ __ l900-l9Jl~~ 2 Harcus Bouh.rare said that some black \vomen journalists \vere also great orators. This- book is about the lives of these women as \vell as their oratorical skills. It is important to note that though Bouhvare exhibited a certain respect for the black \voman and faith in her ability to move an audience, he still viewed them throughout the book as the "gentler sex."

bout the educated black person and the problems he/she sometimes experiences in relating to the populace. This book is the most serious attempt to show what are the problems writers face, particularly those 19

~.;rriters who seek to represent an entire race. Rather than settle for

a 11 look how great black people are" attitude -- though a necessary at-

titude at times -- Cruse dared to be critical of the black intelligent-

sia.

articles devoted to analyzin8 the 11 black mvakening" of 1968. A section

on the black press \¥as included along 1-Jith a list of black mvned and

operated newspapers in the United States :tn 1968. Since the list in-

eluded the date each paper \vas first published, the \vriter ~vas able to determine \vhat nineteenth century papers 1vere still in existence in

1968. This gave me an idea of the availability of each neHspaper for examination.

S. Roucek and Thomas Kiernan is an attempt to evaluate the black con-

tribution to the Hestern Horld. It \vas useful mainly because of a chapter on the contribution of the black press to American culture.

Unfortunately, this chapter did not list or comment on any black \-Jornen- journalists.

Fox is the biography of Hilliam Monroe Trotter, a black journalist of the nineteenth century. This book is important as a source of hack- ground material on the black press and one person's involvement \\lith it.

Another biography, The _h()nc::_],_y...J~!a~rior.__ :__!~e Lif~- and Ti~~s of.._Roh~~~~ 37 Abbot!:_ by Roi Ottley, deals \vith the long-time editor of t:he Chic_a_p:o

Defend~. The book included specific references to Hells-Barnett, but the hook was most valt.iable to this study because i.t gave a picture of 20

what was happening in Chicago during Hells-:Darnett 1 s ' 1crusading years."

8 The _V..2_L~_g_:f___ !g3.-_~ An~_:rjc§_t_3 edited by Philip S. Foner is an

anthology w·hich includes some of the less famous speeches by less

famous Blacks. Also included is some biographical material on and

speeches by journalists Ida B. Hells-Barnett, Hary Church Terrell and

Frances Ellen Hatkins Harper. This book \vould have been more useful

had the author included more analytical material.

The Black Press

and present black press. He examined hmv the black press came to be

and w-hy it is \vhat it is today. He had a separate section on black

11 women journalists because • the relatively feH \-7ho have been pro

ductive writers and editors would be lost in the acco~nts of the men.AO

Holseley can be credited for making an attempt to point out where at

least a fet-7 black women journalists have been influential. Irvine Gar-

land Penn made even more of an attempt to give black female journalists

credit for their contributi.ons in The Afro-American Press and Its Edi- 41 tors, a thorough study of the ninP.teenth century black press. The

\-lriting '"as often flmvery, but the book conta:l.ned some valuable infer-

mation. An entire chapter \vas devoted to lauding many black women

journalists of the nineteenth century. This is an important book as it was \-lritten in the nineteenth century by a journalist who often kne•v the women writers and their works personally.

Another 'lvriter v1ho studi.ed black ~;vomen journalists of the nine- 21

Dann w-e.nt a step further than Penn and included selections by black women journalists i.n this important hook. Hov1ever, Dann' s introduc tion, which included biographical sketches of prominent black editors, excluded women editors. 43 The f\_t~~81~J\fric;~~Tl:.J'~~g_azin~, edited by lvilliam L. Katz, is a collection of articles from the Anglo._.-:-_~f!:_i_'=.Cl_rl._J·:!_agazir:.~, first pub lished in 1859 by Thomas Hamilton of Brooklyn. This book includes selections by Hary Ann Shadd Cary and Frances Ellen Hatkins Harper, both nineteenth century black women journalists.

Henry G. LaBrie 1 s Per?.E_§:..~t:.i:.Y-.~~--~f the__ Bj_:§.c.l~_ress: 1974 gives a good, general overview of the black press. Several journalists and black scholars gave their thoughts on the black press in America.

There are selections by black \•JOmen journalists and one of LaBrie's contentions \vas that women have had a major role in the development of the black press.

_Th~Yoi.ce_ __£i__~l]e Nep~~()_,_l919 115 edited by Robert Kerlin is an important book dealing 'vith the black press of 1919. This compilation, lvhich includes articles from two dailies, a dozen magazines and over t'vo hundred 'tveeklies, show·s hmv Blacks felt about the various events taking place during this time, including the aftermath of Porld Har I, riots in the cities and lynchings. The main flaw vlith this study is the absence of an index. Too much material was included for the editor not to have included a guide shmving Hhere to find it.

Other books in this category scarcely menttoned black lvomen journalists, but they "1ere useful as background material om the black press. Frederick G. Detweiler's The _N~g'!:_o P~g_~0A_thg .. ~~ 46 included 22

excerpts from many black ne1..rspapers and a lot of material on prominent

black male journalists.

eluded sections on criticism of the hlack press, hoH the newspaper

funcd.ons, advertising, a history of the black ne\·!Spaper and one or

t>vO mentions of black v1omen journalists.

Homen in J ournali~_1_11__ l_l_-is tE.rY.. 48 49 Ladie._s ~c:i__the_J'res~ by Ishbel Ross and Nei·7Sp§:_p_e_r~vg_n~

Unden..rood were good for background information on vlhi te female .i ourna···

lists. These books \vould also be useful to one attempting to compare

the careers of black \vomen journalists to those of ~..rhite \vomen journa·-

lists.

To one concerned with \vomen 1 s magazines, Cynthia L. Fhite 1 s

50 ~E'n_I_~- Hag_<;'lZ1:.P_~.s~_!_6J}:~.1.968 might be valuable. Hhite vJrote about

the history of "the women 1 s press" 1..rith particular emphasis on Britain.

In addition, analyses of many \>7omen 1 s magazines were included.

_Ladies L_G_~nq~men an_c:!____E:dit~!_~Sl by Falter Davenport and James

C. Derieux deals 1..ri th a number of magazine editors. Interesting, crea-

tive sketches of a felv women editors 1vere included.

Lerner, is a comprehensive collection dealing vli th black \vomen in all

phases of history. This \vas a very helpful book as many selections by

black women journalists v1ere included. nold Hedgeman 1 s autobiography deals mainly with her work as a YHCA

Horker and as a federal and local administrator. Her \·lOrk during the 23

time that she was an editor and columnist for the N~v;- _Y_\'_r}~_A_ge 'vas

dealt with only briefly.

Nellie F. Hosseil---celebrated the black Homan in The Afro- 5lf ~me_sj_<:__

black women, including some journalists. Especially helpful \vas a sec-

tion on Ida B. Wells-Barnett. This book was a little too personal and

subjective and very little analytical or critical material 'vas included.

Hassell personally kne-tv many of the \vomen that she wrote about and she

probably valued their friendships. Horeover, it should be kept in mind

that Hassell wrote in 1908, during a time Hhen so little that 'tvas good

had been published about black people. Therefore, the tendency of most

black \vri ters >vas to go to the other extreme and talk about only posi-

tive things in relation to Blacks.

Included in Monroe A. Ha:Jors' Not_~~- N~_gr~-J~~-~1!:___ '!1_1~!-E.Iri:. 55 ~~_!!p1u~--~?-i. ... !~~1:_i~----!:ieE__ are biographical sketches of many black women of note. There are many letters and testimonials to the \vorth of these women and some short samples of their work. It seems that every black

'HOman who had ever accomplished anything in the nineteenth century is

included in this book. There was little analysis and in depth discussion regarding the kinds of things these women did, as the author's main concern '"as praising the black woman. 56 Ho~~~n-~e-~~n~3__ ~n_

Q. Brmvn was a very useful book as it includes sketches of Hary Ann

Shadd Cary, Ida B. \\Tells-Barnett, Victoria Earle Hat thews and Frances

Ellen Hatklns Harper, all black \Wmen journalists. Brown wrote years after Hossell and she w-asn't quite so personal and syrupy. Genera._L_Jou_~_ _r~§:.!}~.s~ History

The Press and America57 by Edv!in Emery and American Journalism, A His-

tory: l699---=1:9_0.Q58 by Frank Luther Hott Here useful a_s general j ourna-

lism history books with sections on the black press. These hooks also

contained bibliographies that included sources on nineteenth and early

~~~r1can•- • nr res~_,-so e d 1te· d b y E dw1n . H. F ora. an d Ed- w1n . Emery, J.S. a co lJ.ec-

tion of articles grouped according to historical periods. Some of

the articles vrere interesting and served to supplement this author's knov7ledge of journalism his tory.

Books in this category that were esped.ally good for background materi-

al on nineteenth century American history ~vere In__ ~ea~.<_;-h '?L_~ll_e Ameri

_can_ Dream, edited by Jane L. Scheiber and Robert C. Elliott, 60 The So:=_

cial Fabric: American Life from 16 70 to the Civil \\Tar and The Social

Fa~_]:'ic.: _Arner_:h~a_!l___ Life _from _!:_h_~_ __Q~_:y_:hl_H~.I__~() the Present, both edited by

John H. Cary and Julius Weinberg. 61 In ~-~a!:_~~-

includes an essay by Pauli Hurray, a b1entieth century black woman

journalist. The essay deals with the black woman's role in protest movements. It also examined the way in \vhich black women have been

treated by writers and historians. The Social Fabric: American Life

from 1607 to the Civil h'ar contained some useful information on nine-

Civil ~-Jar to the Present included some useful information on Blacks in the late nineteenth century. 25

62 ]~_and~()ol<__~f Ar~~tcan__ Hi~~oxy by Donald B. Cole and .'!:.1.~~--ll!?-_9..=. clop~qi§l__ ~:f:_J~~~_r_Lcan F:_~-~~--a!!c~_ _R.~_te~~ edited by Gorton Carruth and 63 Associates, consist of short, concise facts about American history listed chronologically.

Theses and Dissertations

Penelope Laconia Bullock located nineteenth century black periodicals for her Ph.D. dissertation for the University of Michigan. In The 64 !_'I~_&1:q~I._t_Q_d_i_caLYr~~§~Jn __tll~.JLD.iJ:_~_ci5t

Vicki Lee Brumagin's "A Study of Homen in American Journalism from 1696 to 1972"65 is a "study" of t~vo hundred and seventy--six years of women in journalism in t~.;ro hundred and fifty-nine pages. As could be expeeted~ this compilation was very generaL However, this study

,;.muld be useful to one looking for names of female journalists, along

~-lith elementary information about them.

In "The Rhetoric of Ida B. Hells: The Genesis of the Anti- 26

Lynch Hovement"66 Hary Hagclelene Hutton discussed the methods of argu mentation used by Hells in her anti-lynching speeches: the instruc tive, the refutative and the motivative methods. Hutton dealt mainly with Hells' rhetorical career from 1892 to 1895. The most important attribute of this study is that, in des crihing \-.1ells 1 crusades in Eu rope, the author made use of several European ne~vspapers and magazines.

Articles

Several contemporary accounts of Hells-Barnett's life were useful, including two articles by Dr. Roland E. Holseley. They are both titled, "Ida B. Hells-Barnett: Princess of the Black Press" and are very similar in make up. One uas published in _!'~ac:hg_~:.' September 7;

1975, pp. 4-6, and the other in _Encor<::_, vol. 5, no. 7, April 5, 1976, p. 2. These articles give important biographical information, as vJell as an excerpt from the Free Sp~ech editorial that led to the destruc tion of Hells-Barnett's free Spee:_"h offices by angry \fuites.

Two other articles of the same nature are George SeiVe1l's "Ida

B. Hells, 11 Black_ ..~o11.egian_, ·Hay/June 1976, p. 20-22 and Inez Tate's

"Ida B. Hells-Barnett," Negrg__ Histo~J7~t11-Jetin, Hay 1942, pp. 179, 182-

83.

11 "The Lynchers l.Jince, NeH Y_~rk Age, September 19, 1891 deals with the furor Barnett's Free_ Spe_ech was causing. in the South. The t~vo white papers mentioned as being particularly concerned about the senti ments of the Fr'=-~--~_peech were the Jackson (Hiss.) Td:.l?.~-!.11~-~nd Sun and the Memphis (Tenn.) Daily ~om~ercial. The Sun went so far as to insist that the people of Hemphis should pro.ceed to muzzle the Free Sneech. 27

An item in Crisis_, voL 38, June, 1931, p. 207, gave \'Tells-

Barnett credit for pioneering the anti-lynching crusade and for being one \vho called for and attended the National Conference of 1909 \vhich resulted in the founding of the NAACP.

Also included in this category w·ere articles that dealt with othe1· black women in journalism history. "The Homan Journalists: Co-

p. 103-104, by Marion Harzolf Has an article on "'omen in journalism history. A fe''' papagraphs on black female journalists \·;rere included.

The author mentioned the editor of a professional journal \vho said, in

1889. that the black \voman ,,mrked uncontested Hith the black man in journalism as she had \vorked side-by-side \vith him in the fields.

In "Early History of Negro Homen in Journalism," Neg:_!~_!li~t_ory

B~1~.b_etin, Summer 1965, pp. 178-179, 193-197, Alice E. Dunnigan wrote

: ·."'""-'-~ short biographies of tHenty black \vomen j mirnalists of the· nin:eteenth century. She used Penn's book as her chief source of information and much of her article was simply a re\vriting of his chapter on nineteenth century black women journalists.

In "Famous Homen of the Negro Race: Literary l.Jorkers," Colored j\meric_?.n Hag_~zin<:., 1901-1902, pp. 366-371, Pauline Hopkins dealt \vith the lives of several black \vomen journalists. These journalists in- eluded Phillis "-1heatley, Frances Ellen '!>!atkins Harper~ Mary Ann Shadd

Cary, Mary Church Terrell and Ida B" Hells-Barnett. This material is somevJhat sketchy.

Henry G. LaBrie's "Hear Ye! Hear Ye! Black Press! 11 Vic-Com,

Inc., March 1972, deals with the present day black press. It \vas use- 28

ful mainly for making comparisons and/or charting the progress of the black press.

Emma Lou Thornbrough discussed early black nm,vspapers and hm.; they Here unsuccessful business ventures in "American Negro Ne't·lspapers,

1880-1914" Bu~:_nes~Hi~tor_y_ Review 40 (Hinter 1966), pp. 467-490.

In "Black Press to Celebrate 150th Anniversary; Began As Pro

11 test: Against Slavery and Racism. Ec!_i_t_o__£ __ ~_9.____Ru_~....::.~~-~]2,~r 110 (Harch 12,

1977), pp. 14-16, Sherman Briscoe discussed the history of the h1.ack press. The article was one of the most comprehensive on black journa lism history.

Carlton n. Goodlett briefly examined the history of the black press but his main concern in 11 Black Press Faces Challenges After 150

Years" Ecl_~tor _<:':_!!_d_ _rublisher 110 (Harch 12, 1977), pp. 17, 20, 'tvas the present day black press and the future of the black press.

In nBlack Press: Democracy's Stepchild or A Successful Exer cise in Ethnic Pride" _!i:ditor_~n.i ...J::..ublisl:er 110 (Barch 12, 1977), pp.l8-

19, Chuck Stone discussed hm·7 "today, the black press is only a skele ton of the financial and circulation portliness it once flaunted."

Ending on a more positive note, Stone offered encouragement to black journalists who have the responsibility of pleading their m·m cause. 29

NOTES FOR INTRODUCTION

1Gerda Lerner,. Black Homen in ''1hi t;e America: A Documentary History (Ne\v York: Randoffilrouse~-19'fi);-preface:------·

2see, for example, James Helvi.n Lee, History of American JournaHsm (Garden City~ NeH York: The Garden c:ityP~t:Cishing~, Inc::~--:1923); John Tebbel, The _<;:_c~:r:!P.::~c_!:~~..:s_!o_!'y__S?i__tlle ~-rn_e_E}:_c:_~n NeHspaper (Ne\>7 York: Ha\vthorn Books, Inc., 1963); Pillard Grosvenor Bleyer, Hain Currents in the History of A..merican Journalism (Boston: Houghton - i1iffli~-Comp~;y ,---_1927) ;-;.nd-Sld~-~y-Kobre, Developments of American Joui_:_nalJ.~~ (Dubuque, Imva: Hrn. C. Brmm Company -Pubfisher;:---1969).

3Examples of black history hooks that fail to treat black women journalists (except for oue or two mentions of Phyllis Hheatley or Frances Ellen Hatkins Harper) are John Hope Franklin, From Slavery to Freedom (New York: Alfred. A. Knopf, 1965); E. Franklin Fraz.i'er-:-~ ThiN;gro-·in the United States (New Ycrk: The HacmiU.an Company, 1957); and Ch-~~rJ::-ess-:--Johr1son·: The_ __ tl_e_gro__ i_g.!:ll!.e.!.:lE~. __ g_i_vilization (Ne,., York: Henry Holt and Company, Inc., 1930). Books on the black press that fail to deal extensively_ with black Homen include: Lee Finkle, Forum for Protest (Cranbury, NE:.\v Jersey: Associated University Presse-;;-Inc., 19T5y;·-Fr-ederick G. Det~-reiler, The Negro Press in the United States (Ch:Lc.ago: HcGrath Publishing co-=-:-19i2y;···vish,.1u -,y:-()iJ~--T};e Negro- Nevrspaper (Yellmv Springs, Ohio: :-r2gro Universities Pres8;-19-4:8):-

4For a complete version of the pof>m, see Hilliam Loren Katz, Eye~vi. thn_f2_~S.2. (Ne>:v- York: Putnam and Sons, 196 7) , p. 37.

5Romeo B. Garrett, Fal!l_ous_yirst_.X?~-~~~-()_2-..!._:t_ Negroes (Ne\v York: Arno Press, 1972), p. 98.

6The North Star, Harch 23, l8l19.

7Roland E. Holseley, The_~3l?-ck_}-'ress, U.S.A. (Ames: Imva State University, 1971), p. 28.

8reter N. Bergman, The Chronological. History of the ~,;~ro in ~~;-_ic~ (NeH York: Harper and R;~., P~bli;he:r-s--:--rn-~:;-icT69)--;p-:--3o~--

9Lerner, p. xv1.1...

10Nartin Dann, The Black Press (1827-1890): the Ouest for I.:Jational Identi!:Y_ (Ne,., York:··--c-.-P~--:Putna~1s-Sons:-1971T:-P-~- 63. 30

11 Lerone Bennett, Jr. , Bef~r-~:...J:_he 1-Icry_flower (Chicago: Johnson Publishing Co., 1969), p. 236.

12G arrett, p. 104. 13 nav:i.d H. Tucker, "Miss Ida B. Hells and Memphis Lynching," Phylon, Vol. 32, No. 2, Summer 1971, pp. 112-122. 14 Herbert Aptheker, A D

16"southern Horrors, 11 reprinted in On Lynchings (Ne,., York: Arno Press and the New York Times, 1969), p-:--i3:--·-----

17!}i:x~ __y_<:rl~~' July 25, 1891. 18 Holseley, p. 28. 19 Dann, p. 63. 20 Ibid. 21 . Aptheker, p. 927. 22 Alfreda Duster, Cr~~ad_~_ff'I_}_ustice (Chicago: University Press, 1970), p. ix. 23 Arna Bon temps, ~yp_:l_€!c_e But __!lere (New York: Hill and Hang, 1966), p. 103. 24 Garrett, p. 105. 25 Holseley, p. 28.

26New York Age, July 25, 1891. 27 Duster, p. xxxi. 31

NOTES

REVIEW OF THE LITERATURE

lsee for example, .T oseph S. Roucek and Thomas Kiernan, Th~ Negro Impact on '~estern Civilization (NeH York: Philosophical Library, r-nc-~~,-1§7-c)·f~------

2 See for example, Hilliam Loren Katz, !Y~'·7_~t_Eess (Ne\v York: Putnam _and Sons, 1967).

3Jane L. Scheiber and Robert C. Elliott, eds. , In Search of !_he _:~ne:c_!_c:?-n lJ_ream_ (N"elv York: Publisher's Inc., 1974), p--:--l;f4-:-·------f, 'Habel l'L Smythe, The P.1ack American Reference Hook (Engle\•700d Cliffs: Prentice--Hall, Inc., 197Kf;-~34s--:-·------

5Gerda Lerner, Black_ Women in Hhite America: A Documentary _Ii_~_sto_!:y (New York: R;-mdo~-H~-~se .---iifiif, pp·.--"24-6-2L;?:------

6scheiber and Elliott, p. 414. 7 "·ny.,..hea.Ji \... , "F • 343.

8rbid.

9Ibid., p. 348.

10Alfreda Duster, Crusade for Justice: Ida B. '\1ells (Chicago: Uni vers Hy of Chicago Press,-19-76):"------

llida B. Wells-Barnett, On LY._f!.£~_:i:_!lf,S_ (New· York: Arno Press and the NeH York Times, 1969).

12Ida B. Hells, et al, The Reason m1y the Colored American Is Not !_!)_the _J!or_!_9._~s- C0_~~b}_?P._f.~'S'?_i~£~i-(;~-- ( ci1i c;g-~-:-ici-~--:8-.-,~~-ils-:··-is-93).

1 ~Ida B. lvells Abroad," Chicago Inter-Ocean~ April 2, 1894, April 9, 1894, April 23, 1894, I-iay--T9,--189T~-}1ay-:-28, 1894, June 25, 1894, July 7, 1894. 14 Arno Press and the lJe\¥ York Times, Proceedings of the Nation _?-}_~~~_Q_g_oE.f=--~re_nce, ]-J09 (Ne'" York: Arno Pre·s~~;n_·d--the--N-ew~'l~rkT{i~es ~- 1969). 32

15 . Ibid., p. 178.

16"An Anti Lynching Crusade in America Begun" Literary Digest 9 (August 11, 189!+): L;21-422; "The Anti--Lynching Crusa(fe11 .iTt-e--r~lry~-- J~:!:_g_~~t:. 9 (September 8' 1894): 5/fl!-51+5; "English Feelings u·pon /\me rica Is Lynchingr3" Literary Digest 9 (July ll+, 1894): 308; "HoH Miss Hells 1 Crusade is Rega-r~ied'-in ·Ainerica" Literary Digest 9 (July 28, 1891+): 366- 367; and "Southern Governors on English Critics" Lit_e_J::"_~_r_y_J?_igest 9 (September 22, 1891+): 1-2 •. 17 Arna Bon temps, Any_p}~a-~_e___ B_.E_t __ H_ere (New York: Hill and v{ang, 1966)' p. 98. 18 Herhert Aptheker, A Documentary History of the Negro People }_!~"the -~I!'li ~-?_CI___ s ta_tes_ (Ne"' Yor'k-:--;fl~e--C:Tt-a~1~i-ri--ess- ,--i95-l)~-p.·-;yij·s·.------

l9Bradford Chambers, Chronicles of Negro Protest (Ne~v York: Parent 1 s Hagazine Press, 1968) ~--p·.---is-i-: ·- -- - ~------

2 0 Saunder s Redding , LC?_1_1_e_s-~~e:_]{ oa_c!_: ___'fh ~--~~().!:Y_!?f__ t h ~. .J!~Jl. r_() _ _in_ Ame.r:iea (NeH York: 1958).

21Arno Press and the Ne~.-1 York Times, Pr_o:.c:.~-~Ai_I!gs __o_f_ th~]'Ta_t.~~r:l.: a~_Neg!:<)__ C2_~n.f~_E(':nce, __ !_~ (Ne'\v York: Arno Press, 1969), p. 174.

22Milton Heltzer, In Their 0\m Hords: A History of the Ameri can_]~g_g_J::"_2_, 3 vols. (New York: Ti~'oi~-as··y:---cro~;e-n::-~----l~f6"7T.-----~-~------

23Hortimer J. Adler, Charles Van Doren, and Georp,e Ducas, eds., Jhe -~egyo__ j:P:_A_m~_EiC

27Lerone Bennett Jr., The Shaping of Black America (Chicago: The Johnson Publishing Company,-19lS-).------

28Allan H. Spear, Black Chicago: The Haking of a Negro Ghetto, _1890-J920 (Chicago: University--o-f--Chicag~-Pre-~;s~--i9-E>"7).------

29Edgar A. Toppin, -~-}_?_:togEa_p_h_:!:_~-~-l_}!_i_~_t:o~y__ ()_~_l?_~~<:!'-:.~JE.ATTl_~_rl_ca Sin~s:_152~ (Ne\v York: McKay Publishers, 1971). 33 ~

30Hilliam Loren Katz, ed., Eye_:;·::_=h!=n.ess (I~e1:v York: Putnam and Sons, 1967). 31 P e te r H. Bergman , Th ~-r~r_~_r1_o):_o.z'-LS:§.l_ _!!~:.~t_ or_y_ .2_~_!=_!:_~_}'1 e g_1;g_2-n America (Ne1:v York: Harper and Rmv Publishers, Inc.)

32Harcus H. Bouh-.rare, The Oratory of Negro Leaders: 1900-1968 (Hes tport, Connecticut: Negro Uni v~r-si-t~-;-Pres-;:-1969T:------

33Harold Cruse, ~-_g_!-"}..:.E;is_y_f_ tll_~]i_~gro I~!:.e..-lJectu~l (New York: Morrm-1, 1967).

34Patricia H. Romero) _!n Bl~~-~America (New York: United Pub~ Hshing Corporation, 1969). 35 Joseph S. Roucek and Thomas Kien1an, eds. , IJ:_e_]i_egE~I-~~1J_act gn He~t~_T}1___ ~_j:...:!::~~!~_at~on (Ne'" York: Philosophical Library, Inc., 1970). 36 stephen R. Fox, The _c;_~?Ii!.?n ~f.J3.oston (New York: Kingsport Press, Inc., 1970).

37Roi Ottley, The Lonely Harrier: The Life and Times of Robert -~ Abh<:>_t.t. (Chicago: Henry Regnery--Co~pany ~--i95-5):" ______

38Philip S. Foner, _!he~ V~ic~f B_l_~ck America_ (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1972). 39 Roland E. Holseley, _Ib.Dla~l~J:>E_~_ssL.._U.S.A. (Ames: Imva State University, 1971). 40 rbid., p. 204.

4lrrvine Garland Penn, The Afro-American Press and Its Editors (New York: Arno Press and the Ne-;---y~rk--Ti~es -:--19-69)---:-----~------

42Martin Dann, The Black Press (1827-1890): The Quest for National Ide~~~-Sl. (Ne-.;v York ·:·c;~-P-:-·-p~f:~a~-,-;-sons-;-19-iiT~------

43william Loren Katz, ed. , The -~lo-4:f_rj.can N~~~!ne (Ne\-7 York: An~o Press, Inc., 1968).

44nenry G. LaBrie, Perspectives of the Black Press: 1974 (Kennebunkport, Haine, 19 7 4 f:;------··------~-----

45 Robert Kerlin, _:The _Y.<2.!:~_e__s:_i_~h~ __Neg_J:"_

46Frederick G. Det\veiler, _!he__ Ii_e_gro P_!'_~J'l£.~~ th~_!_Jnited S~_?tes (Chicago, 1922). 34

SOcynthia L. Hhtte., Ho-r::!~E~_s_l·1~a_z_!~t::__~___:_)_l?2_~_-=l-..:96R (London: Nichael Joseph Ltd., 1970).

51walter Davenport and James C. Derieux, Ladies, Gentlemen and E

55Monroe A. Hajors, Noted Negro Homen: Their Triumphs and £ic!._i~~i tLe.:?_ (Freeport, Ne,., York: -B-~ok-;--:Eor -J-;ibrarie~ Press--~---f9iiY:--

56Hallie Quinn Brm.;rn, Homespun Heroines and Other Homen of n~s_:!:_nct?-or:_t_ (Freeport, NeH York::Boo1Z8·-:rc;r=--1ibr-arie-sPr-ess .--I9i6)-.-

57 Edwin Emery, Th~r~~--CJ.nc1_Ame~ica (Engle,·mod Cliffs: Pren tice-Hall, Inc,, 1972). 58 Frank Luther Hott, American Journalism, A History: 1690-1960 3d ed. (Ne'" York: The Hacmilla~-Company;-1~f6i)-.------~------

59Edwin H. Ford and Ed1:vin Emery, Highlights in the History of .!=E.~ America~-~- (Hinneapolis: Uni versi tyof :rrinnesotaPre.ss~~---1.9 5_4):"

60Jane L. Scheiber and Robert C. Elliott, eds., In_§_e:.__

62Donald B. Cole, !lan_~_book.E.._~ __A__!11eri_£a_~f!!__~-~C?.E.Y (New York: Har court Brace and World, Inc., 1968). 35

63 Gorton Carruth and Associates, cds. , }-'1_1_e E~_y_c:_:l_,_o.E_edi_(l o~ T9-7oAmerican y:------·------·-·- Facts and Dates 5th ed. (Ne-v;r York: Thomas Y. Crmvell Co.,

64Penelope Laconia Bullock, The Negro Periodical Press in the .!!.!!2-J:ed~_a_tes_ (An~t Arbor: The University--of11ich-igan~:--l

65vicki Lee Brumagin, "A Study of Homen in. American Journalism from 1696 to 1972," unpublished Haster's thesis, California State University, Northridge, 1972.

66Nary Hagdelene Boone Hutton, "The Rhetoric of Ida B. Hells: The Genesis of the Anti-Lynch Hovement, 11 Ph.D. dissertation, Indiana University, 1975. BLACK HJSTCRY /',ND THE BlACK PRESS

'l'he nineteenth ce.ntney b:!_aek ne1.;spaper "pr·ov:ide.d the first

F;(':&rlS of real eommnrd.cat:Ln1 hetPe<:m l:d .:.ck pe-ople and the only unifJed

vo:Lce. of black ideas ancl opinion to Htd.tc~ Amer.:tca. The black press

told the story Hhen no one else 'N"'Juld, Hnd served as an inspiration to

those dedicated to cquaJity and :freedom :in the United States of , 11 lu1lf! ·r· i c a • .,_

Indeed? the black writ:e:cG nnd editors of the nineteenth century

black FeopltE~ define uho th.ey \'te:u.::. Thf:: most important function of the

f:.Lrst black public:.at:l.ons v.l(tS to \.;ork fo:t the eradication of slavery and

to rn~ot:es t atb2r inj us ticr:.>s a~;a:tns t h lack people. Ac.cor.d:i.ng to 3 a j curn;:;.lism almost totally committed to a cause.

1~Je~~: Yorl~ in 1827 by t.v:o fre;e bla.ck n:en!l' Samuel E& Cornisl1, a Presbyter~- /l . i.en m:l.rtistc.r, nnd .John B. RussHu:cm~ the first black colleg(e graduate.

Slavery lwd been abolished in Ne•,; Yol~k in 1827, but the Fug:i.tive Slave

l ..a·w y. en&•::tr:!d :in 1793, stlnctioned the· kidnapping of runaway slaves.

PrP}u.d:Lce '~las rampant Jn every <3.spcct of political, social, and econo- 5 mi. c. life. Se:veral ne't·mpapers in Ne<.v Yo:ek regularly attacked the

b l:1ek conmun:tty nnd aboJ.itioTLs '::s. Or:.e v;}d.te ue'ivspaper, the N<:''"' York

-~~!!:.q.:t!.!.!~E.• \vas particularly vituperous irt i.t:s e.ttaeks against E ·. ;:ks,

3h 3i'

and Freedom'~_Jour!_la~ was initially issued as a means of answering

these attacks. 6 Cornish and Russ~vurm were also especially concerned

about the ballot since the Nmv York State Constitution of 1821 had

discriminated against Blacks, requiring them to have at least $250 worth of property to be eligible to vote, while white eligibles could

be penniless. 7

For many years, the black mi.n:tster had been the principal

sp:f..ritual and practical leader of black people. 8 With the issuance of

the first: black newspaper, the black press became, along with the 9 church, a central institution in the black community.

One of the biggest controversies in America during this period

[early nineteenth century] involved the American Colonization Society,

organized in 1816, for the purpose of financing the exportation of all free Blacks to Africa. 1° Cornish and Russwurm printed editorials in

~ournal for and against the Back-to-Africa movement, in an

effort to maintain a middle course on the question of colonization.

However, six months after the birth of Freedom's Journa~, Cornish

resigned and left Russwurm to run the paper alone, because of a dis

agreement over the colonization issue. 11 Apparently, Cornish opposed 12 colonization, w·hile Russwurm was in favor of it.

Many black publications follo\\red Freedom's Journal. According

to Wolseley, "The number of publications issued by Blacks before the

Civil War has bee.n verified as forty or more. 1113 Among the most 14 signi.ficant: of these publications ,.,ere The Weekly Advocate_ (1837),

the !!,irror of Liberty (1838), the African Methodist E_p_iscopal Church

~~1~ (1841)~ 9enius of Freedo~ (1842), the Clarion (1842), the 38

the Elevator (1842), the People's Press (1·843), the .~f>::st~r_y (1843), the Ram's Horn (1847), the .~ot:_th ~-tax:_ (18Lf7), the Christian Herald

(1852),15 the Ali.enated America12 (1852), and the Hirror of the Times

(1855). The first black paper to be established below the Mason and

Dixon line was L' l!nion of Ne't-7. Orleans published in 1862.16

The aims of these publications were similar to those of

Freedom's Journal. In most of these papers, slavery in the South, discrimination in the North, and especially colonization ~.;ere attacked

17 7 re 1 ent 1 essLy.~ . Th ese f ·1rstI b_ 1 ack e di tors, d en i eu t h e opportun1ty. to express them..selves in the \-lhite media, Hanted to be a voice for black people ever}'1?here and they vYanted a platform built on racial pride and unity.

Some scholars have maintained that the North .Star, edited by

Frederick Douglass, was one of the most potent factors leading up to eman.cipation.18 Finkle wrote that this paper was "the high point of black journalism in the pre-Civil Har era in its eloquence, its dura- 19 tion, and the following it gathered throughout the North." The paper's editor, Frederick Douglass, has been described as a journa- listie and oratorical hero of American Blacks, and one of the out 20 standing leaders in their struggle for freedom. Douglass said about his decision to edit the North Star:

The grand thing to be done • • . • ~vas to change the estimation in which the colored people of the U.St. were held; to remove the prejudice x.;hich depreciated and depressed them; to prove them worthy of a higher consideration; to disprove their alleged inferiority, and demonstrate their capacity for a more exalted civilization than salary and prejudice had assigned to them •••• A tolerably well conducted press, by 39

calling out the mental energies o~ the race itself; by making them acquainted \vith their own latent powers; by enkindling among them the hope that for them there is a future; by developing their moral power, by combining and reflecting their talents \>lould prove a most powerful means of removing 21 prejudice, and of av1akening an interest in them.

It is doubtful that these early black editors and publishers were motivated by financial profits since black nevJSpapers Here not

successful business enterprises. 22 Host of these early publications

folded shortly after they were begun because of financial difficulty. 23

A notable exception \vas the Provincial Freeman, established in 1854 in 24 Chatham, Canada, and edited by l'iary Ann Shadd Cary. The paper denounced slavery and encouraged black people tn migrate to Canada.

Clifton H. Johnson vJrote of Cary anti the condition of early black neHs- papers: "That this paper continued for five years is indicative not only of [Cary's) journalistic talent but also of her business acumen.

Few Negro-edited ne,vspa.pers of the ante-bellum period '"ere able to sur vive for more than a few issues."25

Another important function of these early publ:f.cations \vas to 26 promote the convention movement which began in 1830. The convention movementt organized to improve the condition of Blacks in Am~rica, was a significant expression of social action among early Blacks. 27 One author has written that "the National Negro Convention performed accept.ably in so many areas that it could \vell be said to be the first 1128 'national association for the advancement of colored people.'

Furthenaore, according to Dann: 40

It was at the conventions that the· calls for justice and demands for reform \vere hammered out -- and it was in the black press that their resolutions and proceedings v1ere printed • • • • The black press was a crucial factor in bringing leaders together and ftg in disseminating information about these meetings.z

During the Civil \var, only a feH ne\.-7 publications were begun; hovrever, once the ~var was over. many new black publications were begun, 30 half of them in the South. Estimates as to the number of black pub-

lications following the Ci v:f.l Har vary greatly. According to Holseley:

During the decades after 1865, black ne\·JSpapers sprang up in eight states that had had none and in four others that already had papers. From 1875 to 1895, more \vere founded, for this was a ped.ocl of migration to the north. In 1887 alone 68 papers were oegun. And :f.n 1890, according to Prides 575 had been established. 31

Black neHspapers ,,rere established at an unprecedented rate, and though most of them did not live long, 32 enough did survive to indicate progress. in the field. 33 Several reasons for the increase in black papers after the Civil Har have been cited. Armistead S. Pride, a leading scholar of the black press, gave the following reasons for

the upsurge of black papers:

••• increased educational opportun:i.ties for Negroes, support of black papers by religious and vrelfare groups working in the South, establishment of political sheets for enfranchised Negroes, and growth of urban black communities whic.h could support papers.34

Follovring the Civil War, black publications included a wider variety of subjects and the general tone of these papers lvas less milit:ant.35 Some papers contained material on science, art, literature and drama.36 Other topics in these papers included farming, business practices, household hints, and meetings of local interest. 37

Horeover, Finkle has explained:

Papers publ:i.shed after the second third of the nine teenth century were for the most part organs of the political parties hoping to capture the neHly created black vote. Politicians became editors and editors in tum became office~seekers.38

Dann has described this new attitude of the black press following the

Civil lvar as one of cautious optimism. Black people looked with nev1 hope to poH.t:tcal institutions for a redress of grievances, for inclusion in the political life of the country, and for the protection of the federal government. They \vere encouraged by attempts at political reform under Radical Reconstruc:t:f.on. 39

ln 1870, two black men, Hiram R. Revels and J. H. Ra:lney, entered Congress. 40 In this same year, the Fifteenth Amendment, which prohibited the denial or abridgement of suffrage because of race, color or previous condition of servitude, \oJas adopted. lfl Several laws 'tvere passed which seemed to guarantee black people the rights which had previously been denied them~ including the Civil Rights Act of 1875 which guaranteed Blacks equal rights in public placesand prohibited exc 1 us i on :rrom~ Jury. d uty. 42

However, these laws and acts in favor of black people were rarely enforced. 43 The black person learned that there was little to be optimistic about because 'tvhite people soon found "legal" and extra- legal means to reenslave them. In the late 1870s.new forms of servi- 42 tude emerged. In the convict-lease system, any black man, tvoman, or

ch:U.d arrested for any offense was sent to a prison farm 1 where his or hP.r labor was bought by private companies at a few cents a day to pay the fines. As a result of this system, black people ~11ere arrested at an unprecedented rate. Under the sharecropping system, the black family gave most of its crop to the white landlord in return for ad- vances on food and supplies. The black family in this system 't'l7as con~ 44 stantly in debt to the white mvner \vho kept all the records.

In October, 1883, the Supreme Court declared the Civil Rights 45 Act 0.1.c: 1875•· · unconst:ttut~ona. . 1 • In order to restrict black suffrage, several states attached "understanding" clauses to their constitutions, requiring the voter to be able to read and understand the Constitu tion. 46 In 1896 ~ the Jim Crcnv Law of Louisiana was declared constitu- ti.onaJ.. in !:2-essx..._y_. Fer_gus_on. In this case, the Supreme Court set forth the "separate but equal doctrine.n47

In addition, the Ku Klux Klan and several other secret organi-- zations combined their terror in an attempt to stifle any progress or gains made by black people. 48 One author has written that the Ku Klux

Klan and racist state legislatures made a mockery of laws protecting 49 black people. Black papers printed the daily instances of brutality and outrage. that oc,c:urred against black people and called for protec- 50 tion and resistance.

According to Dann:

[During this time] • • • Black newspapers continued to press for an egalitarian system and urged resistance to oppression. By their continued emphasis on various forms of self-help they were able to sustain in the l;3

black community the strength to resist and hope of the future. 51 .

One writer has labelled the years 1880 to 1910 "the Fortune yr~ars 11 after T. Thomas Fortune, "one of the best-knmvn Negro editors at

t. ,. h ,52 t11e turn or t e century.

(founded in 1887), the paper that, for many years, enjoyed the repu 53 tatiotl of being the best ~vritten and most influential black paper.

Other papers published during this period were the Philadel 54 J.?.~.:.~.'!'E.:!:P.E.!le (1881+) , Baltimore's _Afro-Amed.can (1892), the Houston

]:J.)ft?.!.t:t!.~::...-z: (1892, the Im.,ra Bystander (1894), the Ind:!.anapoli~. Recorder

(1895), the I~n Guard:i~an (1901), the Chicago Defender (1905), New

York's Ams~~~m N~~- (1909), Norfolk 1 s ~1 and Guide (1909), and the Pittsburgh Courier (1910). 55 The oldest black ne~vspaper in the

Hest, the Califo'l'."nia Eagle~ was also published during this period.

Established in 1870~ it was edited and published by Charlotta A.

Bass. 56 57 According to one source, the black press ~vas muted during the years 1880 to 1910 because relatively few Blacks kne\-r ho-w to read.

In addition, the great majority of black people lived in the South . 58 ";rhere speak~ng out was not long tolerated.

On the other hand, Wolseley has pointed out that protest kept the papers thriving. He cited the Chicago De~ender as an example of a paper that published mainly scandalous and crime-related stories for a while; hm.;rever, the paper came into prominence only when it became 59 the champion of the people.

William C. Spragens, author of "Contributions of the Negro 60 Press to American Culture ," has written that the tl.m decades between 44

1890 and 1910 sa>v the most successful of a·ll race newspapers

establ:tshed. 61

In addition to the "race papers" that carried news of general

issues concerning black people, a number of special interest periodi-

cals \vere founded bet,veen 1865 and 1909. The establishment of twelve

journals in the field of education reflected a concern for education 62 among Blackss particularly those living in the South. One magazine,

the Sch~el Teacher, established in Hashington, D. C. in 1909, \vas heralded by the _!Je~1 Y~rk A&':_ as "the finest magazine as far as make~up 63 is concerm;:d ever attempted by local colored management."

Another large group of special interest periodicals was issued

for women. Some of these periodicals emanated from the secular club 64 movement among women. Included in this group were ~ational Associa- tion l~es (1897), the organ of the National Association of Colored

\~omen; the Homan's Era (1894), of the Homan's Era Club; and Imva

Colored Homan_, the publication of the Imva State Federation of Colored 65 Homen's Clubs. It is important. to note that these periodicals concerned themselves \vith more than the everyday activities of their respective clubs.

Homen's magazines that appeared independent of organizational sponsorship were Ringyood' s Afro-Ameri_~~n Journal of Fashion (1891) edited by Mrs. ,Julia Ringlvood Costen; Homan's Horld (1900) edited by

Jay~. Taylor; and the Colored Homan's Magaztne (1907) edited by Mrs.

C. M. Hughes.66 The magaz:tne recognized as "the first publication for black women and children" 'vas Our lvomen a.nd Children established in

1888 and edited by Rev. William J. Simmons. According to Penn, this 45

magazine did more than all other black publications to bring out the

talent of black Homen journalists.67

Since 1910s the growth of the black press has been signifi-

cant. Acc.ording to Spragens, this is due in part to the better economic status of many Blacks, their increased rate of literacy, 68 growing race consciousness, and grovTing urbanization Blacks.

11 Dann has written that ••• At a time v1hen vmmen .~rtere fighting for their rights in American society, some black ~.;omen were recognized as important and equal members of the blade press. u69

Journallst, Nellie F. Mossell, often admonished black ed:ttors that

"our journals should improve greatly" :i.f each editor would "secure the assistance of some wise, helpful, intelligent, and enthusiastic woman.n70

As early as August 10, 1827, women were con·tributing to the black press-- in this case, the paper was Freedom's Journal.71

Black women v1rote on a variety of topics. The first magazine devoted to Blacks :ln the field of music was the Musical Messenger, edited and published by a woman~ Amelia L. Tilghman, in 1887. 72 In an issue of

cussed t..romen 1 s rights and the many reasons why a woman's occupation should. involve more than "fathomfng the dfshkettle, darning stockings, and cooking puddings."73

Often, articles by and about women concerned matters of the home. More often, though, women 'tolrOte about important issues facing black people -- male and female. Such issues included race pride and self-improvement,74 education, the oppression of black people and lynching.75 46

One black journalist, Ida B. Hells.-Ban1ett, led a one~vmman 76 crusade against lynching. Scholars have written that Hells-Barnett's vms the strongest voice among black journalists as she relentlessly attacked lynching in numerous papers in the United States and abroad. 77

It is about lvells-Ban1ett that the remainder of this study is concerned. NOTES FOR CHAPTER II

15.

2Roland E. lvolseley wrote in The Black Press, U.S .A. (Ames: Iovm State University Press, 1971), p. 18~ that the vecyflrst papers, especially, must have been ai.med mainly at white readers, since the literacy rate of Blades in the early part of the nineteenth century was lo~J. The editors probably w·ente.d to :tnfluence the Whites who >vere in posit:ions to help black people.

3Roland E. Wolseley, The Black Press, U.S .A. (Ames: Imva State

University Press, 1971) 9 p. li:--

4ttNe~vspapers in HeH York, 11 The Netv York .Az..e, 19 November 1892, p. 4.

5Hartin Dann, The Black Press (1827-1890): The Quest for Nat~_ldentity (New York: G. P. Putnam's Sons-:-197~

6wolseley, p. 17.

7sherman Briscoe, "Black Press to Celebrate lSOth Anniversary," Er.1it2_r and y~~l_e_E.t vol. 110, no. 11 (Harch 12, 1977), p. 14. 8 vishnu V. Oak, TI1e Negro NevJspaper (Yellow Springs: Negro Universities Press, 1948), p. 26. 9 Dann, p. 13.

10Leslie H. Fishel Jr. and Benjamin Quarles, The Black American (Ne\v York: Hilliam Harro-w and Company, Inc., 1970), p. 145. 11 Holseley, p. 18.

12Lee Finkle, Forum for Protest (Cranbury: Associated University Presses, Inc., 1975), p. 19.

13carter Bryan, "Negro Journalism in America Before the Emancipation," Journalism }~onographs, no. 12 (Septernb~r 1969: 30), as quoted in Wolseley, p. 19.

l4Jhe Wee~JY- Advocate became the Colored American two months after its inception.

15The Christian Herald later became the Christian Recorder. 16 Finkle~ p. 29. 17 IlJ i .a.' ' p. 20. 18oak, p. 21. 19 Finkle., p. 21.

20wolse1.ey, p. 20. 21 Edwin Emery, The Press and America, 3d ed. (Engleivood Cliffs: Prcnti~.e~Hall Inc., 197Z~p. 222. 22 Emma Lou Thornbrought "American Negro Ne,.;rspapers, 1880-1914," ~!!_esL_History__ ~~:!-_~~ 40 (Winter 1966), p. 467.

23Ib:l'.d.

2'•Clifton H. Johnson, "~a:ry .Ann Shadd, Crusader for the 11 Freedom of Nan~ _Crisif':_ 78 (April~Hay, 1971), pp. 89-90.

25rbid.

26D ann, Pe 17o ''7 .,.._ Gerald Baydo, ·A.~s_al P:i_~tory cf _the United States (Engle- wood Cl:tffs: Prentice-Hall, Inc., 1974), p. 302. See also Joanne Grant, Black Protest (New York: St. Hartin's Pre3s, 1968),p. 10, and WilliamZ.-F'""Oster;--;rhe Negro Peo.r.1e in A.'ilerican Historr (New York: International Pub.lishers Co., Inc., 1954.) ~ 96. 28 Howard Holman Bell, ed., Minutes of the Proc.:eedings of the !~ational_Ne_gro Conventions, 183_0-1864 (New York: Arno Press and the New York Times, 1969), p. i. 29 Dann~ p. 17. 30 Wolseley, p. 25. 31 Ibid.

32The greatest number of unsuccessful black papers were begun in Chicago~ sometimes called the graveyard of black journalism. The most successful of the early Chicago papers vias the Conservator_ which began publication in 1879, and was later edited by Ida B. Hells-Barnett.

33 Finkle, p. 29.

34Axmistead Scott Pride, "Negro Newspapers: Yesterday, Today and Tomorrm_.," Journalism Quarterly 28 (Spring 1951), p. 179, as cited in Emery, p. 634. 49

35 F·U1K 1 1 e, P• 29 •

36Holseley, p. 26. 37 Dann, p. 21. 38 Finkle~ p. 29.

39 Dann, p. 20.

40 Gorton Carruth and Associates, knerican Facts and Dates, 5th ed. (Ne·1v York: Thomas Y. Crowell Company, 1970).

l~l Ib:f.d.

42Les1ie H. Fishel Jr. and Benjamin Quarles, The Black American (Ne"l York; liJilliam Mc.:,:rm.J and Company, Inc., 197o"};P-: 283.

44 Darm, p. 21.

45~ . l':i.shel and Quarles 9 p. 283. 46 Carruth and Associates.

3 M ~·lj_lton Meltzer, In Their Own ~vords: A History of the Ameri-· can Negro 1865-1916 (New York: Thomas Y. Crowell Company, 1965), p. 32. 49 sherman Briscoe, ''Black Press to Celebrate 150th Anniver sary," p. 14. 50 Dann, p. 2L 51 Ibid, p. 22 52 Emery, p. 635. 53 Emma Lou Thornbrough,"Arnerican Negro Newspapers," p. 470.· 54 The ?hiladel£hia Tr~~ is the oldest continuously published black newspaper in the country.

5 6Gerda Lerner~ Black Women in White America: A Documentary_ His!EXY (New York: Random House, 1972), p. 343. 50

C:"'l 1 :; ·Habel H. Smythe, The Blnc.k Ameri~an Reference Book (Engle wood Cliffs: Prentice-Hall,-In~--;-1~~T76T:-P"-;:- 849-~ 58 Ibid. 59 Wolseley, p. 27. 60 Joseph S. Roucek and Thomas Kiernan, eds., .I~e Ne_gro_!E_~pact on Hestern CiviH.zation (Ne~.;r York: Philosophical Library, Inc., 1970), p. 173. 61 Ibid. 62 Penelope Laconia Bullock, T_he Negro ~.2-:!..~t_£§-l_Pres£2-~ ~~d- States t-J-838~ (Ann Arbor: The University of Michigan, 1971), p. 18. 63 Ibid.~ p. 285. 6lf Ibid., p. 18.

65Ibid. , p. 248. 66 Ibid. 67 Irvine Garland Penn, The Afro-American Press and ItB Editors (New York: Arno Press and the Ne~lY"ork Times, 1969), p. 120~------68 Roucek and Kiernan, p. 184.

69nann, p. 60. 70 Penn, p. /~90. 71 Herbert Aptheker, A Do<;...':!:nentary History of the_ Negro Peo_ple in the United States (New York: The Citadel Press, 1951), p. 89. 72 Penn, p. 404. 73 Aptheker, p. 89. 74 A leading black journalist \vhose artfcles often urged black self-improvement, -.;v-as Frances Ellen Hatkins Harper. In an exemplary artlcle for the Anglo-African I::f.::~azin~, she said: "If this government has no call for our services, no aim for our children, ,.;e have the greater need of them to build up a true. manhood and womanhood for our selves." See The Anglo Africa~~-l1ag,?z:Lne (Nm.; York: Arno Press, Inc. , 1968), p. 160. 75 For examples of these articles, see: Gerda Lerner, especially pages 83~ 194, 226, 523 and 537. 51

76 Lerner, p. 211. 77 Smythe, p. 851. CHAPTER III

IDA B. HELLS -- EARLY YEARS

Ida B. Hells was born in Holly Springs, Hississippi in 1862 ~ the year follmving the outbreak of the Civil lvar. On July 17, 1862, the day after Wells' birth, Congress passed the Confiscation Act, which emancipated all slaves who had escaped from rebel masters and 1 gave the President discretionary power to use black troops in the war.

This was one of many laws, enacted during this crucial time in

American history, which affected the life of this child and many other children born to slave parents.

Important newspapers in the North during this time which directly or-indirectly influenced the lives of black people, included

Horace Greeley's New York Tribune, Henry J. Raymond's New York Times, and James Gordon Bennett's New York Herald. The Tribune urged Lincoln to emancipate the slaves and to enlist them in the armed forces. Per haps the most famous of the Tribune editorials criticizing Lincoln for his slmmess in issuing an official proclamation freeing slaves ~vas 2 Greeley's August 20, 1862 editorial, "Prayer of Twenty Millions."

Raymond's Times argued for anti-secession, while empathizing with the southern viewpoint. The Herald grudgingly supported Lincoln's admini stration and the war. Other papers that ~vere mainly anti-slavery in cluded the Chicago Tribune and the Sprinfield Republican. 3 Southern papers included the Richmond Dispatch, the Charleston Courier, the

52 53

Savannah Republican, the Atlanta Confederacy, the Columbus Sun, the

Hobile Advertiser, the Ne~.; Orleans Picayune and the H~mphis Appeal. 4

This last newspaper, the Hemphis Appeal, already flourishing when Hells

was born, would later become a critical, deciding factor in the course

of Wells' life.

On January 1, 1863, the Emancipation Proclamation was issued,

and in 1865 the Civil War ended. Edwin Emery has written:

American history in many respects starts afresh at the close of the Civil War • • • between 1865 and 1900 the United States was to pass through a revolution which affected every phase of the national scene. The forces were those of intensive industrialization, mechaniza tion, and urbanization bringing 'tvith them sweeping social, cultural, and political changes. At some point bet't.;een the Civil War and the turn of the century, the slow maturing process of virtually every aspect of American life was given powerful new impetus or redirec tion.S

From 1865 to the end of the century the United States was

picking up the threads of her social, political, and economic life, so

abruptly cut in 1861, and attempting to tie them together in a new pat-

tern as a result of the war. This was the era into which Ida B. \•lells

was born, the oldest of eight children of Jim and Elizabeth Wells. Her

birthplace, Holly Springs, Mississippi, was a relatively peaceful small

town that had hardly featured during the Civil \.Jar. 6 Despite the

failure of government programs and the unwillingness of Whites to sell

land to Blacks, a significant number of ex-slaves bought farms after

the war. 7 Not only did Jim Wells manage to buy a home for his family,

but he was also ambitious enough to establish his mm carpentry business against considerable odds. 54

The desire for education was central to most freedmen and in

Ida's case, her parents '"ere no exception. The)" sent the young Ida to

Rust College, a Freedmen's Bureau school,8 where her father was a member of the first Board of Trustees. She attended Rust until the age of sixteen and was regarded as "an exceedingly apt pupil. rr9 1-Jhile a child, Wells read the entire Bible because her deeply religious parents allowed nothing else to be read on Sundays. One writer has portrayed eleven-year-old Ida Wells as the pride of the community who, every week, read the newspaper to those in Holly Springs who were unedu- 10 cated. Perhaps it was while Ida taught in this imformal manner that she realized the value of an education, and determined that she would educate other black people in later years.

- The black person's situation in the 1860s '"as marked by paver- ty, discrimination and violence. The authors of the pamphlet, 11The

Reason Why the Colored American is Not in the World's Columbian Expo- sition", explained the black person's situation during this time:

The Civil War of 1861-5 ended slavery. It left us free, but it also left us homeless, penniless, ignorant, nameless and friendless • • • We were turned loose to starvation, destitution and death. So desperate was our condition that some of our statesmen declared it useless to try to save us by legislation as we were doomed to extinction.ll

They further stated that since reconstruction, any amendments adopted in favor of black people were "largely nullified in the south, and the

Negro vote reduced from a majority to a cipher."12 This had been accomplished by political massacres, by midnight outrages of Ku Klux

Klans, and by state legislative enactment. 55

That the legislation of the ~vhite South is hostile to the interests of our race is sho~ by the existence in most of the southern states of the convict lease system, the chain-gang, vagrant laws, election frauds, keeping back laborers wages, paying for work- in l-70rthless script instead of lawful money, refusing to sell land to Negroes and the many political massacres where hundreds of black men we11 murdered for the crime (?) of casting the ballot.

The issuance of Black C~des w·as an attempt to legalize continued white control over the freedmen. Blacks who were unemployed or without a permanent residence were declared vagrants. They could be arrested and fined, and if unable to pay, be bound out for terms of labor. The States sanctioned the actions of the police and the courts in virtually upholding peonage, in spite of its being a federal of fense.14

The child, Ida, though not fully capable of understanding the crucial nature of her existence, probably discerned the link between the need for her education and the concrete circumstances of the lives of black people. She wrote that though she didn't understand exactly what the words Ku Klux Klan meant, she remembered clearly the anxious way that her mother tvalked the floor at night when her father was at a political meeting. 15 The Ku Klux Klan, formed in Tennessee, opposed equality for black people, demanded a white man's government and in- sisted upon pre-war states' rights for the South. The Klan perpetuated barbarities all over the South and endless cases of organized murders of black people \vere reported. 16 One author has written that "The number of Negroes killed during Reconstruction will never be known. 17 Five thousand would probably be a conservative estimate." 56

While Hells was growing up, there were riots in several cities

throughout the South, especially during elections. In Mississippi, for example, t\¥0 hundred black people18 were killed in a \veek before the

city election of 1874. 19 The peak of organized social violence occurred between 1874 and 1876. Some of the worst riots took place in

New Orleans, Louisiana, }Iemphis, Tennessee, Savannah, Georgia, Hamburg,

South Carolina and Meridian, Nissisr;dppi.

At a time when epidemics of yellow fever, cholera and smallpox were sweeping through many southern cities, Hells' parents were stricken w·ith yellow fever. Both of her parents and their youngest

child died in an 1878 epidemic, leaving Ida vJells, age 16, to care for her five remaining brothers and sisters. 20

Several friends and neighbors offered to take care of some of the children, but strong-willed Ida Hells was determined to keep the family together. Later, in Crusade for Justice, she \¥rote:

When all this [where each child would go] had been arranged to their [the Nasons'] satisfaction, I, who had said nothing before and had not even been consulted, calmly announced that they were not going to put any of the children anywhere; I said it would make my father and mother turn over in their graves to know their children had been scat tered like that and that we owned the house and if the Masons wo~td help me find \vork, I would take care of them.

With money that her father had left and what she managed to earn, Wells cared for all of them alone, becoming their support and substitute parent.

In the same year that her parents died, Wells passed the 57

teacher's examination and secured a teaching position in a one-room school in the rural district about six miles from Holly Springs, Missi- ssippi. After only one term, she moved the family to Memphis on the invitation of an aunt who offered to take care of the younger children while Ida worked. She taught in the rural schools of Shelby County while studying for the teacher's examination for the city schools of . 22 Memp h 1s. In 1883, she attended summer sessions at Fisk University where she first became interested in journalism, and wrote for the

Fisk Heral~, a campus magazine. 23

In 1884, Wells passed the teachers' qualifying examinations for the Memphis city schools and was awarded a teaching position. She joined a public schoolteachers' club, meeting with the group every Fri- day afternoon for literary exercises. Wells wrote that these programs 24 were ~·a breath of life" to her. At the end of each session a journal called the Evening Star was read by the writer/editor. This journal consisted of news items, literary notes, criticisms of previous pro- 25 grams, poetry and a "They Say" column of personalities.

Earlier that year, while on a train trip, Hells had her first adult encounter with the structure of segregation. The conductor on the Chesapeake and Ohio Railroad told Hells that she would have to move from the ladies car to the smoking car. She refused and \vhen the conductor tried to drag her to the other car she bit the back of his hand.

The conductor called the baggage man for help and when Ida saw that they were determined to move her, she decided to get off the train, rather than move to the smoking car. She went back to Memphis and sued the railroad. 58

The Supreme Court had declared in 1878 that any state law requiring a railroad to provide equal accommodations for all passen gers regardless of race or color was unconstitutiona1. 26 In another decision, in 1883, the Court ruled the Civil Rights Act of 1875 uncon stitutional. In theory, this Act had guaranteed Blacks equal rights in public places and prohibited their exclusion from jury duty.

Wells' case against the Chesapeake and Ohio Railroad attracted national attention because it was common practice for railroad per sonnel to insist that black people ride in the inferior smoking car.

In December 1884, the local court returned a verdict in favor of Ida

\-Jells and aw·arded her five hundred dollars in damages. 27 A headline in the Memphis Daily Appeal read: "A Darky Damsel Obtains.a Verdict for

Damages Against the Chesapeake and Ohio Railroad -- Hhat it Cost to

Put a Colored Teacher in a Smoking Car-- Verdict for $500. 1128

However, the railroad appealed the case to the state's supreme court and on April 5, 1887, the Supreme Court of Tennessee reversed the decision of the lower court. 29 The Court's reasoning was that rather than trying to obtain a comfortable seat on the train, Ida Wells had been making trouble. Wells wrote in her autobiography that hers was the first case in which a black plaintiff in the South had ap pealed to a state court since the repeal of the Civil Rights Act of

1875, and that the success of her case would have set a precedent for 30 other black people to follow.

i•fuen the editor of the schoolteachers' journal, the Evening

Star, left to pursue other interests, Hells was elected to succeed him. .59

Each week she 'tvrote ne'tvs items, editorials and notes to be read at the teachers' metting on Friday. The attendance at these meetings increased ~vith people who came to hear Ida Hells' Evening Star read.

Rev. R. N. Countee, editor of the Living Way, a religious weekly begun in 1874, read the Evening 2tar and invited Wells to do some writing for his paper.31 A surprised and flattered Ida Wells accepted his offer and one of her first stories was about the suit that she had brought against the Chesapeake and Ohio Railroad. Later, she 'tvrote in her autobiography:

I had no training except what the work on the Evening Star had given me, and no literary gifts and graces. But I had observed and thought much about conditions as I had seen them in the country schools and churches. I had an instinctive feeling that the people who had little or no school training should have something com ing into their homes weekly which dealt with their prob lems in a simple, helpful way. So in weekly letters to the Living Way, I wrote in a plain common-sense way on the things 'tvhich concerned our people. Knowing that their education was limited, I never used a word of two syllables where one would serve the purpose. I signed these articles "Iola."32

These articles 'tvere ~videly read because soon after they appeared in the Living Way, other black newspapers reprinted them. In addition, ''the brilliant lola" was asked to write for some of the larger black papers and magazines. 33

In 1886 Hells traveled to Kansas City, Topeka, Denver, Salt

Lake City and San Francisco and wrote letters to the Living Way describing these cities. She taught for a short time in California and then in Kansas City, Missouri before returning to Hemphis. 60

Wells wrote that she never enjoyed teaching, but that she 34 tried to do her w·ork well. It appears that though Wells taught for seven years, her primary love was journalism. Because she enjoyed writing so much she was particularly pleased when the head of the Negro

Press Association, Dr. Hilliam J. Simmous, 35 a religious journalist and educator, offered her a dollar a week if she \vould write for his Our

Women and Children, a Baptist publication. 36 It was the first time that lvells had ever been paid for writing.

For three years Hells was on the staff of the American Baptist

Home Hissionary Society while continuing to teach. She represented

Our Women and Children at the press convention in Louisville, Kentucky, becoming the first woman representative at one of these conventions.

It was at the Louisville convention that she first met Frederick

Douglass, Bishop Turner and Senator Blanche K. Bruce.37

Between 1883 and 1887, while Wells was writing for several publications, none of \-lhich could really be termed hers, Joseph

Pulitzer's crusading ne'ivspaper, the Ne\v York World, broke every 38 publishing record in America. Before the turn of the century, Wells would employ some crusading techniques of her own -- techniques that were not entirely unlike those of Joseph Pulitzer.

In 1889 Wells was asked to join the staff of the Free Speech and Headlight, thus launching a journalistic career that would span forty-seven years. 61

NOTES FOR CHAPTER III

1August Neier and Elliott P. Rudwick, From Plantation to Ghetto: An Interpretive History of American Negroes (New· York: Hill and Hang, 1966) , p. 141. 2 Edwin Emery, The Press and America (Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey: Prentice-Hall, Inc., 1972), p. 233.

3Ibid., pp. 233-237.

4Ibid., P. 252.

5 Ibid., p. 259. 6 Alfreda Duster, Crusade for Justice: The Autobiography of Ida B. Hells (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1970), p. xiv.

7Meier and Rudwick, p. 153. 8 The Freedmen's Bureau was set up in March 1865 and one of its tasks was to organize schools for black people. The Freedmen's Bureau gave hundreds of thousands.of dollars to the education of Blacks. See From Slavery to Freedom, pp. 302-303; also, see From Plantation to Ghetto, pp. 155-156.

9Alfreda Duster, p. xv. 10 · Inez D. Tate, "Ida B. Hells-Barnett," The Negro History Bulletin 5 (May 1942), p. 182-183. 11 Ida B. Wells et al, The Reason vfuy the Colored Man is Not in the \olorld's Columbian Exposition (Chicago, 1893), p. 13. 12 Ibid., p. 14. 13 Ibid. 14 Gunnar Myrdal, An American Dilemma (New York: 't-fcGraw~Hill Book Company, 1964), p. 558.

15 Duster, p. 9. 16 Hilliam Z. Foster, The Negro People in American History (New York: International Publishers Co., Inc., 1954), p. 327. 62

17 Guy B. Johnson, "Patterns of Race Conflict," as cited in Edgar T. Thompson, ed., Race Relations and the Race Problem (Durham, North Carolina: Duke University Press, 1939), p. 138.

18This figure is given as 70 in Gorton Carruth and Associates, American Facts and Dates (NeH York: Thomas Y. Crowell Company, 1970), p. 304. 19 J. Saunders Redding, They Came in Chains (Philadelphia: J. B. Lippincott, 1969), p. 181.

20Another brother, Eddie, hsd died a few years before the death of Ida's parents. 21 Duster, p. 16. 22 Ibid., xvi. 23 Roland E. Wolseley, "Ida B. Wells-Barnett: Princess of the Black Press," Encore 5 (April 5, 1976), p. 2. 24 Duster, p. 23. 25 Ibid. 26 Carruth and Associates, p. 314. 27 - Duster, p. xvi. 28 • The Memph1s Daily Appeal, Thursday, 25 December 1884, p. 4.

29 Tennessee Reports: 85 Cases Argued and Determined in the Supreme Court of Tennessee for the Western Division, Jackson, April Term, 1887. Chesapeake and Ohio and Southwestern Railroad Company v. Wells, as cited in Duster, p. xvii. 30 Duster, p. 20. For other black women journalists' accounts of their experiences with segregation, see Dann, The Black Press, pp. 95-97.

31rbid., p. 23. 32 Ibid. 33 Roland E. l\folfleley, Encore 5, p. 2.

34 Duster, p. 31. 35 Wells wrote in her autobiography that she owes her fame in the field of journalism to Dr. Simmons. See Duster, p. 32. 63

36Roland E. Holseley, Encore 5, p. 2. 37 Duster, p. · 32. 38 Edwin Emery, p. 292. CHAPTER IV

FREE SPEECH AND ANTI-LYNCHING CRUSADES

God has raised up a modern Deborah in the person of Miss Ida B. Hells, \·7hose voice has been heard through out England and the United States • . • pleading as only she can plead for justice and fair treatment to be given her long-suffering and unhappy people ..•• We believe that God delivered her from being lynched at Nemphis, that by her portrayal of the burnings at Paris, Texas, Texarkana, Arkansas, and elsewhere she might light a flame of righteous indignation in England and America, which, by God's grace, will never be extinguished until a Negro's life is as safe in Hississippi and Tennessee as in Massachusetts or Rhode Island.l

'Vhile writing for several publications edited by various men, 2 Ida Wells decided that she wanted to edit a newspaper. At the

National Press Convention in Louisville, Kentucky in 1889, she read a paper on "l.Jomen in Journalism: or How I Hould Edit. "3 The opportunity to edit a paper came soon after the convention when she was invited to write for the Free Speech and Headlight of Nemphis, a weekly paper owned by Rev. F. Nightingale, pastor of the largest Baptist church in Memphis, and J. L. Fleming. Because she refused to join the staff of the paper except as an equal partner, Hells >vas given a one-third interest and the editorship. 4 The Free Speech and Headli~ht became simply the Free

Speech.

Wells was primarily concerned -vlith issues that involved black people and her Free Speech articles reflected this. The Free S~~~ch'~ goal was to fight for just treatment of black people. In addition, the

64 65

Free Speech avidly encouraged black self-improvement.

On November 1, 1890, Hississippi adopted a nev7 constitution and became the first state to add an "understanding clause" to dis- courage black voters. The Fifteenth Amendment provided that "The right of the citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or a- bridged by the United States or any State on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude." The "understanding clause" stated that any citizen who could understand a clause of the Constitution 1vhen it was read to him would be declared eligible to vote. This clause \vas obviously enacted to restrict black suffrage. Wells wrote:

That law was executed by the very white men who passed it. It was easy for them to decide that very few Negroes understood the clauses of the Constitution which they chose to read to them. Especially \vhen they asked them to define the meaning of the ex post facto lrov. Of course they saw to it that any white man, no matter hmv illi terate, understood the simple clause lvhich was always read to him. In this way they thought they had gotten around meptionin3 race, color, or previous condition of servitude.

The Free Speech criticized Isaiah Hontgomery, the only black member of the Mississippi Constitutional Convention of 1890, for voting for the infamous "understanding clause. 11 The Free Speech stated that instead of acquiescing, he should have gone down to defeat still voting against the outrageous clause. 6

Between 1890 and 1908, every southern state disfranchised all its black voters by means of poll taxes, white primaries, and literacy or property qualification tests enforced against Blacks but not against Hhites. 7 66

The beginning of Hells' acquaintance with Booker T.

Washington, a race leader, began when she criticized him in a Free

Speech editorial. Washington had written in the Christian Register of

Boston, Massachusetts, that 11 two-thirds of the Negro preachers of the south were morally and intellectually unfit to teach or lead the people."8 Wells felt that though Hhat Hashington said may have been true, it was wrong for him to write about it in a white paper, and in a white paper so far from the south.

According to the September 12, 1891, edition of the New York

Age, the Free Speech \vas also very critical of then ex-Senator Blanche

Kelso Bruce of Mississippi. An article in the New York Age stated:

The M~mphis Free Speech, the brilliant female portion of it, insists that ex-Senator B. K. Bruce has not been as true to the race and to the interests of the race as the condition of affairs and the responsible positions he has occupied demanded. Miss Wells says: [from Free Speech] ••• ~fuat can history say of our Senator Bruce, save that he held the chair of a senator for six years, drew his salary and left others to champion the Negro's cause in the Senate Chamber?9

In another Free Speech editorial, ~.Yells disputed a ne\vs item that had been circulating Ylhich stated that a post office had been established on the plantation of B. K. Bruce. Hells wrote:

I find there is no such postoffice lvith any such name. It seems that Mr. Bruce wanted and made application for such a postoffice and -- by the way -- for a white postmaster too, but he did not get it. The postoffice is at Everston, two miles away, and Mrs. J. M. Williamson is postmistress.lO

And again on the quality of Bruce's work as a Senator, Hells 67 I •

v1rote:

The man's En..tccess has been wonderful. The history of this country does not show another personage who has jumped from the office of county sheriff in.to the United States Senate. Aided by his able lieutenant, George C. Smith, in those early times he controlled men as pieces of a checker board, and made them stepping stones to his ambition. I admire the shrewdness and pluck which saw the tide of affairs, and the ability ~vhich grasped the opportunity at the flood and thus enabled Mr. Bruce to rideto a haven of prosperity and honor. But Senator Bruce would have a more enduring name in history if he possessed more love for his pepple. 11

In the two years that '"ells was editor, the Free Speech be-

came an increasingly effective voice against racial injustice and Well~

crusading for racial justice gained her wide readership throughout the

:t-Iississipp1. delta.12 \

Every week evidence came from all over Hississippi, Tennessee and Arkansas that the Free Speech was a welcome visitor, a helpful influence in the li\•es of our people, and was filling a long-felt want • ~ . The Free Speech flourished like a green bay tree. 1

American journalism during this time was being energized in

New York by Joseph Pulitzer~ who applied various crusading and inde

pendent journalism techniques to the New York,!:I.Erl~. 14 Pulitzer be-

lieved that:

every issue of the paper presents an opportunity and a duty to say something courageous and true; to rise above the mediocre and conventional; to say some thing that will command the respect of the intelligent, the educated, the independent part of the community; to rise above fear of partisanship and fear of popular prejudice.l5 68

These very principles were being applied in Hemphis, when each week the Free Speech carried something worthy of respect -- some-

thing courageous, true and unusual. Wells was not one to keep quiet about social ills, even when speaking out meant self-sacrifice. In

1891 while Hells w·as still a teacher, she Hrote an editorial in the

Free Speech protesting the inadequate school facilities and the unquali- fied teachers given to black children. Hells further suggested that some of these teachers had nothing to recommend them except an illicit 16 friendship with members of the school board. As a result of this editorial, Hells lost her teaching position and was forced to make her work on the Free Speech a full-time job.

11any articles in the Free Speech '"ere concerned w·ith the barbarous practice of lynching in the United States. At least one Free

Speech editorial advised Blacks to fight back and avenge themselves

'vhen members of the race were lynched. A New York ~ 'vriter commented:

The Jackson (Miss.) Tribune and Sun and the Memphis (Tenn.) Daily Commercial are squirming in great shape over the outspoken sentiments of the Memphis Free Speech commending the retaliatory measures adopted by the Afro-Americans of Georgetmm, Ken tucky, in revenge of the lynching of one of their number. The Sun insists that the people of Memphis should proceed to muzzle the Free Speech and the Commercial drops into philosophy and declares that ttvo wrongs do not make one right; and that, while the white people ought to stick to the law, if they do not do so the blacks can hope for nothing but extermination if they attempt to defend themselves. 17

In the decades following the Civil War, Blacks became potential competitors in the labor market. To white workers this 69

situation was extremely disturbirig.l8 On March 9, 1892, three young

black men who owned a grocery store in Memphis were lynched when they

resisted attacks on their shop by a white competitor. 19 All three of

the me~, Thomas Moss, Calvin McDm·7ell and Henry Stewart, wen~ personal-

ly knmvn to Hells, and though she t·Jas stunned by their brutal deaths,

she was determined that the Free Speech would carry on. She w·anted to show the white people of Hemphis that they could not murder three black

people without paying dearly for it. Her first editorial following the

lynching of the three grocers read:

The city of Hemphis had demonstrated that neither character nor standing avails the Negro if he dares to protect himself against the white man or become his rival. There is ·nothing we can do about the lynching nmv, as tve are out-numbered and without arms. The white mob could help itself to ammunition \vithout pay, but the order was rigidly enforced against the selling of guns to Negroes. There is therefore only one thing left that we can do; save our money and leave a town which will neither protect our lives and property, nor give us a fair trial in the courts, but takes us out and mur2 rs us in cold blood when accused by white persons. 0

Hundreds of black people left Memphis follo\-Jing the lynchings of the three grocers. Those who stayed in Hemphis boycotted businesses and refused to ride the streetcars and the Memphis economy suffered tremendously. Hells wrote: "The white man's dollar is his god, and to stop this will be to stop outrages in many localities ••• the black men left the city by thousands, bringing about great stagnation in every branch of business."21

Because several white dailies published horror stories of life in the Hest and the North to dissuade Blacks from leaving, Wells 70

made trips to Kansas City and Oklahoma and wrote letters back to the

Free Speech telling her readers ~.;hat she sa~.; of conditions there and advising them of the chance they had of developing manhood and woman hood in these territories. 22 In this way, the black exodus from the 23 South l-lhich had begun in the 1870s continued and accelerated partly because of \~ells' editorials.

In the last week of Hay, 1892, Wells put her life on the line and wrote the following editorial for the Free Speech:

Eight negroes lynched since last issue of the "Free Speech," one at Little Rock, Ark., last Saturday morning where the citizens broke (?) into the peni tentiary and got their man; three near Anniston, Ala., one near New Orleans; and three at Clarksville, Ga., the last three for killing a white man, and five on the same old racket -- the ne~v alarm about raping white women. The same ·programme of hanging, then shooting bullets into the lifeless bodies was carried out to the letter.

Nobody in this section of the country believes the old thread-bare lie that Negro men rape white women. If Southern ~vhite men are not careful, they will over-reach themselves and public sentiment will have a reaction; a conclusion will then be reached lvhich will be very damaging to the moral reputation of their women.24

This was indeed a bold statement for a black woman in the

South to make in 1892. Conditions for southern Blacks had reached their nadir by this time; in fact, conditions had become worse than at any other period since emancipation of the slaves. Furthermore,

Hyrdal wrote in his study of the black press that black papers in the

South during this period tended to be more cautious and less belligerent because concerted action on the part of Blacks was usually so 71

severely checked. 25 Yet, Ida lvells defied danger and pointed out the

fact that sexual encounters between black men and white women were often voluntary and that the charge of rape was merely an excuse for

Whites to kill Blacks. Hells ~vas perhaps the first journalist to chal- lenge the honor of southern white women and she did it at a time when so-called southern chivalry was at its height.

For a long time, Hells believed like most people that though lynchings were wrong and against the law, anger over the terrible crime of rape led to the lynchings and the criminals deserved death anyway. Hmvever, when Moss, HcDmvell and SteY7art ~.,rere lynched in Mem- phis when they had committed no crime against white women, Hells did some investigating of her own. She wrote, "I then began an investigation of every lynching I read about. I stumbled on the amazing record that e~ery case of rape reported in that three months became such only 26 when it became public." She also wrote that white men didn't want to see Blacks succeed politically, socially or economically, and that lynching was a way of keeping the black person in his/her place.

Once Wells realized the truth about lynchings, she was determined that the world should know. No denunciation of lynchings was more fervent or as widely acknowledged. Wells ~.;rrote in her autobiography:

No torture of helpless victims by heathen savages or cruel red Indians ever exceeded the cold-blooded savagery of ~vhite devils under lynch law. None of the hideous murders by butchers of Nero to make a Roman holiday exceeded these burnings alive of black human beings. This \vas done by white men who con trolled all the forces of law and order in their com munities and who could have legally punished rapists 72

and murderers, especially black men who had neither political power nor financial strength lvith lvhich to evade any justly deserved fate. 27

Wel_ls "rallied anti-lynching sentiment both at home and abroad, and almost single-handedly kept the issue alive."28 Her articles lvere a revelation to Frederick Douglass 29 >vho, troubled by the increasing number of lynchings, had begun to believe that black men were often guilty of raping white women. In a letter to Wells,

Douglass lvrote on October 25, 1892:

Let me give you thanks for your faithful paper on the lynch abomination nmv generally practiced against colored people in the South. There has been no word equal to it in convincing poHer. I have spoken, but my word is feeble in comparison. You have given us what you know and testify from actual knowledge. You have dealt with the facts lvith cool, painstaking fidelity and left those naked and uncontradicted facts to speak for themselves

Brave woman! you have done your people and mine a service which can neither be weighed nor measured • 30

\lliile Wells condemned lynching and wrote in a militant, self- assertive style, most of her contemporaries -- among them Mary Church

Terrell, Amanda Smith Jemand, and Mary HcLeod Bethune -- answered in patient articles and speeches the slanders and racist insults spread over the pages of national magazines. 31 Other black lvomen journalists attacked lynching, 32 but none wrote with the conviction, the passion, the bitterness, and the first-hand knowledge of Ida B. Wells.

No male editor had presented the side of lynching that Wells exposed. She touched and treated at length subjects upon which 'male editors had shown the greatest reluctance. 33 Hmvever, T. Thomas Fortme 73

was brave enough to publish Wells' lynching articles in his New York

Age.34 Hells wrote in Crusade for Justice:

The Negro race should be ever grateful to T. Thomas Fortune and Jerome B. Peterson of the Ne\v York Age that they helped me give to the world the first inside story of Negro lynching.35

The Free Speech, with its crusading spirit and aggressive editorials, continued until Hells' editorial of Hay 21, 1892, which questioned the theory that black men v7ere lynched because they raped white women. Shortly after this editorial appeared the Free Speech offices were destroyed.

It lvas the third week in May, 1892, 36 that Hells, after writing her Free Speech editorials for the lveek, left for the A.M.E. general conference in Philadelphia. After meeting in Philadelphia with such people as Frances Ellen l

Coppin, Wells left for New York City. She was met in New York by T.

Thomas Fortune, editor of the Ne\v York Age, who immediately shmved her a copy of the New York Sun where he had marked an Associated Press dispatch from Memphis. The article stated that, acting on the advice of a

May 25 Commercial Appeal editorial, a committee of leading citizens had gone to the office of the Free Speech, run the business manager, J. L.

Fleming, out of town, destroyed the type and furnish~ngs of the office, and left a note saying that anyone trying to publish the paper again would be punished \vith death. 37

The Nay 25 editorial in the Appeal that encouraged the white 74

mob to destroy the Free Speech office reprinted Wells' momentous Free

Speech editorial and stated that "The fact that a black scoundrel is allowed to utter such loathsome and repulsive calumnies is a volume of evidence as to the wonderful patience of southern whites. But we have had enough of it. There are some things that the southern white man will not tolerate, and the obscene intimations of the foregoing have brought the writer to the very outermost limit of public patience."38

In addition, the Evening Scimitar of the same date said, "The black wretch who had written that fpul lie should be tied to a stake at the corner of Main and Madison streets, a pair of tailor's shears used on him and he should then be burned at a stake."39

As in the case of Elijah Lovejoy, who was murdered in 1837 40 for publishing abolitionist material, a mob had shmm that it ~vould use any tactics necessary to still a voice that sought justice for black people. Fortunately, unlike Lovejoy, who continued to print his paper after his press had been destroyed twice, Wells chose not to return to

Memphis. Neither her pen nor her voice was stilled though. Wells wrote in Crusade for Justice:

My friends declared that the trains and my home were being watched by white men who promised to kill me on sight •••• They had destroyed my paper, in which every dollar I had in the ~vorld was invested. They had made me an exile and threatened my life for hinting at the truth. I felt that I owed it to my self and my race to tell the whole truth.41

Wells continued writing for various publications including the

New York Age, the Arena, the New York Independent, Original Rights.

Magazine and Survey magazine. She published a history of lynchings, a 75

pamphlet called "A Red Record." Other pamphlets written by 'Hells included "Southern Horrors," "Mob Rule in New Orleans" and along with

Frederick Douglass, Ferdinand L. Barnett (who later became her husband), and Irvine Garland Penn, she produced "The Reason Why the Colored

American is Not in the World's Columbian Exposition."

In October, 1892, some of the leading black '"omen of Ne,., York,

Massachusetts and Pennsylvania met in New York to hear Wells speak about her experiences in Hemphis and what she had learned about lynchings in the United States. Included in this group were journalists, 42 Victoria Earle Matthews and Josephine St. Pierre Ruffin. This group, which became the Women's Loyal Union, gave Wells five hundred dollars to keep until the time when she could start her own newspaper. The meeting was the beginning of the club movement among black \vomen in 43 America and it was the beginning of public speaking for Hells.

In 1893 Wells was invited by Catherine Impey, editor of Lon- don's Anti-Caste to lecture in England on "Lynch Law." Wells sailed to the United Kingdom in April, 1893, and lectured for two months in the major cities of England and Scotland. During this trip lvells helped organize "The Society for the Recognition of the Brotherhood of Han."

The aim of this group was to secure freedom, equal opportunity and bro- 44 therly consideration for all human beings.

On February 28, 1894, less than a year after \-Tells' return from her first trip abroad, she again sailed for the United Ki~gdom.

Feeling that \vells could bring about greater results during a second visit, The Society for the Recognition of the Brotherhood of ~mn had invited Wells to return to England. Before leaving, Hells contacted 76

William Penn Nixon, editor of the Chicago Inter-Ocean45 and told him of her plan to return to England. He asked her to write for the Inter-

_Ocean while she was away. Hells wrote that "In that tvay I became the first ••• of my group [Blacks] who was a regular paid correspondent 46 of a daily paper in the United States." In a column "Ida B. Hells

Abroad," Wells wrote for the Inter-Ocean during the six months of her stay in England. In these articles she discussed her anti-lynching activities, the condition of black people in the United States and her impressions of the various cities visited. In her first correspondence to the Inter-Ocean, Wells explained why she chose to speak in England against racial injustice in the United States:

The question has been asked by Americans why I come abroad to tell of the race's grievances, and if more good might not be done in America? Unquestionably, if the same opportunity tvere afforded us to be heard, but tve, as a race, cannot get a hearing in the United States. The statistics show that lynchings for 1893 were as frequent and some of them more shocking than the year previous. The press and pulpit of the coun try are practically silent tvith a silence tvhich means encouragement. The pages of current literature, when opened to a discussion of the negro question at all, are open only to the Southern tvhite man, who is given full license to defame the entire negro race as he chooses • • • As the English press and pulpit set the example in speaking out plainly against injustice, it is to be hoped that these powerful agencies in the United States will do the same. \Vihen they do, sen timent will be aroused, and l

In another correspondence, Hells gave a brief history of

Liverpool, a city that had been the greatest cotton market in the world and strongly pro-slavery during slavery years. Hells went on to say that Liverpool had since redeemed herself. In this same article, 77

Wells gave the following facts about lynching:

(1) First: • • • all the machinery of la~v and politics is in the hands of those ~vho commit the lynching; they therefore have the amending of the_ lavrs in their own hands; and it is only ~veal thy white men whom the latv fails to reach; that in every case of criminal procedure the Negro is punished. (2) Second: Hundreds of Negroes including women and children are lynched for trivial offenses on sus picion and in many cases when known to be guiltless of any crime, and that the law refused to punish the murderers because it is not considered a crime to kill a Negro. (3) Third: Many of the cases of "assault" are simp!a adulteries between white women and colored men.

In another dispatch, Hells ~vrote:

Most of them [meeting of people in Bristol, England] had imagined that since emancipation Negroes were in the enjoyment of all their rights. It is true they had read of lynchings and while they thought them dreadful had accepted the general belief that it was for terrible crimes perpetuated by negro men upon white 'tvomen. I read the account of that poor woman who was boxed up in the barrel into which nails had been driven and rolle? downhill in Texas, and asked if that lynching could be excused on the same ground.

Again the question lvas asked lvhere were all the legal and civil authorities of the country, to say nothing of the ·Christian churches, that they permitted such things to be? I could only say that despite the axiom that there is a remedy for every wrong, everybody in authority from the President of the United States dmvn, had declared their inability to do anything; and that the Christian bodies and moral associations do not touch the question. It is the easiest way to get along in the South (and those portions in the North where lynchings take place) to ignore the question altogether; our American Christians are too busy saving the souls of white Christians fromburning.in hell-fire to save the lives of black ones from present burnings in fires kindled by white Christians.49 .:. .... 78

According to Wells' dispatches to the Inter-Ocean, she also discussed segregation at the various meetings held in her honor throughout England. She wrote:

It seems incredible to them [the English people] that the Christian churches of the South refuse to admit Negro communicants into their houses of worship save in the galleries or in the back seats • • . I told of a young mulatto named James Cotton who was dragged out of one of the leading churches in Hemphis, Tennes see, by a policeman and shut up in the station house all day Sunday • • • I was asked if Northern churches knew of this discrimination and continued fellowship with the churches which practiced it. Truth compelled me to reply in the affirmative, and to give instances which showed that in every case the Northern churches, which do not practice these things themselves, tacitly agreed to them by the Southern churches; and that so far as I knew principle has always yielded to prej~Bice in the hope of gaining the good will of the South.

And in another dispatch:

But primitive as are these raih..ray carriages [in Lon don] , I as a Negro can ride i.n them free from insult or discrimination on account of color, and that's what I cannot do in many States of my m-m free (?) A.rnerica. 51

Wells often accused the American press of not doing its part to stop lynchings. She wrote:

The American press ~vas but little better. Now and then when a particularly horrible case of lynching was reported there were strong editorials against it and then the subject died away. The New York Independent and the Forum had symposiums lately on the subject in which the southern white man had vented his opinion fully and freely. The Independent had been good enough to give the Negro also a voice in the discussion. • • Only the Inter-Ocean among the dailies had given any systematic attention and dis cussion to the subject·from the standpoint of equal and exact justice to all the condemnation of lynching. 52 79

And in another Chicago Inter-Ocean article:

Clippings from the daily papers of Memphis, and Nashville, Tennessee, Atlanta, Georgia, New Orleans, Louisiana, Paris and Dallas, Texas, where, in many cases the mob was influenced by the editorials and reports of lynchings to do these deeds of lynching. • • • It \vas only the rarest exception that a Southern or Northern paper had taken an uncompromising stand for the exercise of law no matter what the crime charged. ~bere these papers had failed to do this it was an encouragement to mobs.53

Before and after l\Tells' trips to England, she continued to write for the Ne>v York Age. According to author, Luther P. Jackson,

Wells acquired a one-fourth interest in this relatively successful paper edited by T. Thomas Fortune.S4 In her column, "Iola's Southern

Field," she discussed such topics as self-defense, migration and organized resistance to race oppression.

In one article '.Jells encourage Blacks to improve themselves by getting an education, putting money in their pockets and supporting each other. She wrote:

ifuen he [the black person] has a dollar in his pocket and many more in the bank, he can move from injustice and oppression and no one to say him nay. When he has money, and plenty of it, parties and races 1vill become his servants • • • • Let each one of us try saving a part of every day's earnings, for the next four years and see how much better off we will be.SS

In this article she also criticized those black people who failed to support the Age:

Eight millions of Afro-Americans, the intelligent classes of whom -- the ministers, la~Jers, doctors, teachers and college bred and educated tradesmen, -- 80

excuse their failure to support race journals on the plea "there is nothing in them." For four months we have given them the best paper of its kind, full of solid reading matter, live helpful, interesting race news, 'vhich they could get nowhere else and we have not had four hundred new subscribers in all that time!56

In "lola's Southern Field," Hells expressed her thoughts on the Republican Party. On November 8, 1892, Republican candidates,

Benjamin Harris and lVhitelaw Reid, lost in the presidential elections to Democrats, Grover Cleveland and Adlai E. Stevenson. Wells said:

••• they [Republican Party]· have ignored and alienated the larger part of the intelligent Afro American of every one of the doubtful States • I am a Republican but I was an Afro-American before I was a Republican, and the race cannot suffer more outrage, indignity and cruelty under a Democratic administration, than it has under a Republican administration •••• 57

In another New York A~ article, "The Jim Crmv Car," 1>Jells wrote on the separate car question and hmv black people had to unite in order to eradicate Jim Crowism:

We cannot and should not wait for the support of the masses before we begin the work but trust to the inherent drawing power of the eternal principles of right. Since we haven't a national organization in the strict sense of the term lve should and must de pend for success upon earnest zeal and hard work to spread the truth of our cause and insure its success. The history of the abolitionists shows that they did it, and kept it up with timeless zeal, until that handful of men and women made themselves heard and people began to think • • • • As to my journey to Chattanooga, I rode (as I anticipated) in the Jim Crow Car; I waited (as I had to) in the Negro waitingroom, with a score or more of the men of my race looking on with indifferent eyes. Yes, we'll have to fight, but the beginning of the fight must be 81

with our mvn people. So long as the majority of them are not educated to the point of proper self respect, so long our condition \vill be hopeless. 58

During this time, Wells, incensed at the exclusion of black

Americans from the l\Torld's Columbian Exposition of 1893, wrote along with Frederick Douglass, Irvine Garland Penn, and Ferdinand L. Barnett,

The Reason Why the Colored American is Not in the World's Columbian

Exposition. She discussed how this action on the part of the Horld's

Fair authorities was so unfair because of the contributions that Blacks had made to America. She said:

They [Blacks] were among the earliest settlers of this continent, landing at Jamestown, Virginia, in 1619 in a slave ship, before the Puritans, \vho landed at Ply mouth in 1620. They have contributed a large share to American prosperity and civilization. The labor of one half of this country has always been, and is still being done by them. The first credit this country had in its commerce \vith foreign nations was created by productions resulting from their labor. The wealth created by their industry has afforded to the white people of this coun try the leisure essential to their great progress in education, art, science, industry and invention.59

Wells attacked lynching from many different angles in numerous magazines. In an article for the New York Independent, Wells answered a previous Independent article written by Jane Addams in which

Addams wrote under the assumption that most lynch victims had committed rape. Hells said:

Appreciating the helpful influence of such a dispas sionate and logical argument as that made by the writer referred to [Jane Addams], I earnestly desire to say jj! nothing to lessen the force of the appeal. At the same time an unfortunate presumption used as a basis for her argument works so serious, tho doubtless unintentional, 82 l

an injury to the memory of thousands of victims of mob law; that it is only fair to call attention to this phase of the writer's plea. It is unspeakably infamous to put thousands of people to death without a trial by jury; it adds to that infamy to charge that these victims 'tV'ere moral monsters, when, in fact, four-fifths of them were not so accused even by the fiends who murdered them!60

Then, using the Chicago Tribune as her chief source, Wells went on to give statistics showing the number of lynchings between

1896 and 1900 and the number of lynch victims who were actually charged with rape. Wells showed that lynch victims were charged with everything from cattle stealing to miscengenation to running q.uarantine to using inflammatory language. She further stated:

It would be supposed that the record would show that all, or nearly all, lynchings were caused by outrageous assaults upon women; certainly that this particular offense would outnumber all other causes for putting human beings to death without a trial by jury and the other safeguards of our Constitution and laws.

But the record makes no such disclosure. Instead it shows that five women have been lynched, put to death with unspeakable savagery during the past five years. They certainly were not under the ban of the outlawing crime. It shows that men, not a few·, but hundreds, have been lynched for misdemeanors, while others have suffered death for no offense known to the law • • • Instead of being the sole cause of lynching, the crime upon which lynchers build their defense [rape] furnishes the least victims for the mob. In 1896 less than thirty-nine per cent of the Negroes lynched 'tV'ere charged with this crime; in 1897, less than eighteen per cent; in 1898, less than sixteen per cent; in 1899, less than fourteen per cent; and in 1900, less than fifteen per cent, were so charged.61

Years later, in Survey magazine, Hells gave additional statistics on the number of lynchings in the United States and the reason given for those lynchings. She also discussed a statement made 83

by one Governor Blease in ·which he said that he would willingly lead a mob to lynch a black man who had assaulted a ,.,hite woman.

In concluding this article, Hells wrote:

Civilization cannot burn human beings alive or justify others to do so; neither can it refuse a trial by jury for black men accused of crime, >vithout making a mockery of the respect for law which is the safeguard of the liberties of ,.,hite men. The nation cannot profess Christianity, which makes the golden rule its foundation stone, and continue to deny equal opportunity for life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness to the black race.

Hhen our Christian and moral influences not only concede these principles theoretically but work for them prac tically, lynching will becom a thing of the past, and no governor will again make a mockery of all the nation holds dear in the defense of lynching for any cause.62

Hells appealed to the American conscience from several points of view.

In 1900 in Arena magazine, she argued that black persons accused of a crime should not be lynched.but given a fair and impartial trial for the following reasons:

First, on the ground of consistency. Our watchword has been "the land of the free and the home of the brave. 11 Brave men do not gather by thousands to torture and mur der a single individual, so gagged and bound he cannot make even feeble resistance or defense. Neither do brave men or women stand by and see such things done \vithout compunction of conscience, nor read of them \vithout pro test. Our nation has been active and outspoken in its endeavors to right the \vrongs of the Armenian Christian, the Russian Je,.,, the Irish Home Ruler, the native women of India, the Siberian exile, and the Cuban patriot. Surely it should be the nation's duty to correct its own evils!

Second, on the ground of economy. To those who fail to be convinced from any other point of view touching this momentous question, a consideration of the economic phase might not be amiss. It is generally known that mobs in 84

Louisiana, Colorado, Hyoming, and other States have lynched subjects of other countries. ~fuen their different governments demanded satisfac tion, our country was forced to confess her inability to protect said subjects in the several States because of our State-rights doctrine, or in turn demand punishment of the lynchers. This confession, while humiliating in the extreme, was not satisfactory; and while the United States can not protect, she can pay. This she has done, and it is certain will have to do again in the case of the recent lynching of Italians in Louisiana. The United States already has paid in indemnities for lynching nearly a half million dollars • • • [Here Wells lists China, Italy and Great Britain as countries to ~vhom the United States has paid.]

Third, for the honor of Anglo-Saxon civilization. No scoffer at our boasted American civilization could say nothing more harsh of it than does the American white man himself who says he is unable to protect the honor of his women ~vi thout resort to such brutal, inhuman, and -degrading exhibitions as characterize "lynching bees." ••• No nation, savage or civilized, save only the United States of America, has confessed its inability to pro tect its women save by hanging, shooting, and burning alleged offenders.

Finally, for love of country. No American travels abroad without blushing for shame for his country on this subject.63

Hells concluded thusly:

A felv months ago the conscience of this country was shocked because after a two-tveek.s trial, a French judicial tribunal pronounced Captain Dreyfus guilty. And yet, in our ovm land and under our own flag, the lvri ter can give day and detail of one thousand men, '"omen, and children who during the last six years were put to death without trial before any tribunal on earth. Humiliating indeed, but altogether unanswerable, was the reply of the French press to our protest: "Stop your lynchings at home before you send your protests abroad. 11 64 85

In another Independent article Wells answered an Independent .. writer who declared that black editors, preachers and teachers should

"tell their people to defend the lm.rs and their own rights even to blood, but never, never to take guilty participation in lynching ~.rhite man or black. "65 Wells wrote that because of the work of black preachers, editors and teachers, there were few, if any, instances where black people had committed the crime of lynching. Further, Hells

felt that since white people \17ere doing all the lynchings, then the white preachers, editors and teachers should tell their people to stop heinous crimes. She asked:

Ought not they to tell their people over and over • again that ten human beings have been burned alive in this country during the past seven years - three of them during the year 1899? For the seven years the negro has been agitating against lynching he has made this appeal to the leaders of thought and action among the \.rhi te race. 66

Finally, Hells appealed to the self-interest of white pe?ple

\~Then she suggested that their mm security was threatened t.rhen lynchings were allowed. She said, "If they (white leaders] will do their duty in this respect the negroes will soon have no bad examples of the

lync~ing kind set, which in their desperation they may be tempted to

follow. "6 7

Wells was often called upon to do investigative reporting.

For example, in 1893, when C. J. Miller was lynched in Bardwell, Ken-

tucky, Wells was sent by the Chicago _Inter-Ocean to investigate the murder. Posing as Miller's widow, she learned the circumstances sur- rounding the case and reported the facts to black American newspapers 86

and London papers as 'tvell as the Chicago Inter-Ocean. In 1909 Hells. traveled to Cairo, Illinois, to investigate the lynching of two men one 'tvhite and one black. She visited the scene of the lynchings, interviewed the black people of Cairo for three days, and read the file of every newspaper in the city published during the lynchings.

In an article, "How Enfranchisement Stops Lynching," Hells told of her efforts to have Sheriff Frank Davis ousted because of his failure to protect the victims of the Cairo lynch mob. It \vas largely because of Wells' argument to the governor of Illinois that Davis was finally removed from the office of Sheriff. '~ells believed that

II • this decision [by Governor Deneen] with its slogan 'Hob law can have no place in Illinois' has given lynching its death blow in this state."68

The Chicago Defender reported the follo~ving regarding Hells' work during the Cairo investigation:

The Bethel Literary and History Club held its first meeting under the leadership of ne,vly elected officers last Sunday. Hrs. Ida B. \-Tells-Barnett gave a report of her investigation of the recent Cairo, Illinois, lynching 'tvhich was commendable in every detail. If we only had a few men with the backbone of Mrs. Barnett, lynching would soon come to a halt in America. A collection of $13.25 't•7as taken and turned over to the citizens committee to apply on money spent by Mrs. Barnett in making her investigations.69 '

Wells published the pamphlet, "Southern Horrors" in 1892 shortly after the destruction of the Free Speech. In this pamphlet she discussed the circumstances leading up to the destruction of her paper and her consequent exile from Hemphis. Here, for the first time, 87

she gave many examples of illicit relationships between black men and white women. She cited the \vhite press as one of the chief causes of

lynchings. Finally, she printed examples from white papers that pre-

sented black people the least favorably. She reprinted a Daily

Commercial article of May 17, 1892.

The Daily Commercial on May 17, 1892 said: No man can leave his family at night without the dread that some roving Negro ruffian is watching and waiting for this opportunity • • • l.fuat is to be done? The crime of rape is ahvays horrible, but for the Southern man there is nothing which so fills the soul with horror, loathing and fury as the outraging of a Hhite woman by a Negro. It is the race question in the ugliest, vilest, most dangerous aspect. The Negro as a political factor can be controlled. But neither laws nor lynchings can subdue his lusts. Sooner or later it will force a cr75is. \.Je do not know in what form it will come.

Wells wrote that on June 4, 1892, the Memphis Evening_Scimitar

excused lynch law on the basis that:

Aside from the violation of tvhite women by Negroes, which is the outcropping of a bestial perversion of instinct, the chief cause of trouble bettveen the races in the South is the Negro's lack of manners. In the state of slavery he learned politeness from association with white people, who took pains to teach him. Since the emancipation came and the tie of mutual interest and regard between master and servant was broken, the negro has drifted away into a state which is neither freedom nor bondage. Lacking the proper inspiration of the one and the restraining force of the other he has taken up the idea that boorish insolence is independence, and the exercise of a decent degree of breeding tmv-ard Hhite people is identical tvith servile submission. In consequence of the prevalence· of this notion there are many Negroes who use every opportunity to make themselves offensive, particularly when they think it can be done with impunity. 88

He have had too many instances right here in Memphis to doubt this, and our experience is not exceptional. The white people won't stand this sort of thing, and whether they be insulted as individuals are [sic] as a race, the response will be prompt and effectual ••• It is also a remarkable and discouraging fact that the majority of such scoundrels are Negroes who have received educational advantages at the hands of the white taxpayers. They have got just enough learning to make them realize how hopelessly their race is be hind the other in everything that makes a great peo ple, and they attempt to "get even" by insolence, which is ever the resentment of inferiors. There are well-bred Negroes among us, and it is truly unfor tunate that they should have to pay, even in part, the penalty of the offenses committed by the baser sort, but this is the way of the world. The innocent must suffer for the guilty.71

In this same pamphlet Wells discussed journalist, Henry H.

Grady72 and the attitudes of most Southerners during the period. She lvrote:

Henry H. Grady in his lvell-remembered speeches in New England and New York pictured the Afro-American as incapable of self-government. Through him and other leading men the cry of the South to the coun try has been "Hands off! Leave us to solve our problem." To the Afro-Arnerican the South says "the white man must and will rule." There is little dif ference between the Ante-bellum South and the New South.

Her white citizens are lvedded to any method however revolting, any measure however extreme, for the subjugation of the young manhood of the race. They have cheated him out of his ballot, deprived him of civil rights or redress therefor in the civil courts, robbed him of the fruits of his labor~ are still murdering, burning and lynching him.7~

Wells believed that the most pmverful tools to fight black oppression were the boycott, emigration and the press. She ~lso believed in black self-defense. In "Southern Horrors" she advised black 89

people of what they should do to help themselves.

The lesson this teaches and w·hich every Afro-American should ponder ~vell, is that a Hinchester rifle should have a place of honor in every black home, and it should be used for that protection which the lmv re fuses to give. l~1en the white man who is always the aggressor knmvs he runs as great a risk of biting the dust every time his Afro-American victim does, he will have greater respect for Afro-American life. The more the Afro-American yields and cringes and begs, the more he has to do so, the more he is insulted, outraged and lynched.

The assertion has been substantiated throughout these pages that the press contains unreliable and doctored reports of lynchings, and one of the most necessary things for the race to do is to get these facts before the public. The people must know before they can act, and there is no educator to compare with the press.

The Afro-American papers are the only ones which will print the truth, and they lack means to employ agents and detectives to get at the facts. The race.must rally a mighty host to the support of their journals, and thus enable them to do much in the way of investi gation.74

In another pamphlet, "A Red Record," published in 1895, Hells gave the first statistical treatment of lynching.75 It was also a detailed history of the lynching of Blacks since the Emancipation Procla- mation. Hells wrote:

The student of American sociology will find the year 1894 marked by a pronounced awakening of the public conscience to a system of anarchy and outla~vry which had grown during a series of ten years to be so com mon, that scenes of unusual brutality failed to have any visible effect upon the humane sentiments of the people of our land. Beginning with the emancipation of the Negro, the inevitable result of unbribled [sic) power exercised for two and a half centuries, by the white man over the Negro, began to show itself in acts of conscienceless outla\vry. 9()

Not all nor nearly all of the murders done by 'tolhite men, during the past thirty years in the South, have come to light, but the statistics as gathered and preserved by Hhite men, and ~vh:fch have not been ques tioned, show that during these years more than ten thousand Negroes have been killed in cold blood, Hithout the formality of judicial trial and legal execution. And yet, as evidence of the absolute im punity \vi th which the Hhi te man dares to kill a Negro, the same record shows that during all these years, and for all these murders only three \vhi te men have been lynched for the murder of colored people, these three executions are the only instances of the death penalty 76 being visited upon \vhite men for murdering Negroes ••••

According to Wells, there were three chief excuses given for lynchings:

The first excuse given to the civilized world for the murder of unoffending Negroes \·las the necessity of the Hhite man to repress and stamp out alleged "race riots." The second excuse which had its birth during the turbu lent times of reconstruction, \vas [to maintain] a \vhite man's government • , .77

HoHever, through the efforts of the Ku Klux Klan, the Regulators and other laHless mobs, who massacred defenseless Blacks attempting to vote, "The franchise vouchsafed to the Negro grew to be a 'barren ideality,' and the colored people found themselves voiceless ••• With no longer the fear of "Negro Domination" before their eyes the \vhite man's second excuse became valueless and [they] invented the third excuse -- that Negroes had to be killed to avenge their assaults upon women."78

In "Mob Rule in Ne~·l Orleans," Hells gave an account of that city's race riot at the turn of the century. She used reports from the New Orleans Times-Democrat and the New Orleans Pica_yune, t"tvo papers that detailed the riot. 91

I ••• tell the story of the mob in New Orleans, 'tvhich despising all law, roamed the streets day and night; searching for colored men and women, whom they beat, shot and killed at will.

In the account of the New Orleans mob I have used freely the graphic reports of the New Orleans Times Democrat and the Ne~v Orleans Picayune. Both papers gave the mast minute details of the \veek' s disorder. In their editorial comment they ,,7ere at all times urgent in their defense of lm-1 and in the strongest terms they condemned the infamous work of the mob. 79

Several unique qualities emerged in the writing of Ida B.

Hells which give some insight into her character. The most outstanding characteristic is that of courage. It should be remembered that Hells was born a slave and that she \vrote in the South following the Civil

War when the \,7hite Southerner's hatred and fear of the black person was at its height. Nany black people particularly in the South -- continued to be peons with virtually no power for years after emancipation.

Wells' writings would be a revelation to today's readers. Her readers in the decades immediately follow·ing the Civil Har must have been astonished and bewildered by this young, educated black \vornan who talked of self defense, illicit affairs between black men and southern white women, and the economics of lynching. Many black people accepted the impressions of themselves that were fostered by racist whites.

In order to appease 1.fuites, black leaders such as Booker T. Hashing ton conceded that black people 'tvere inferior in some ways and that therefore, they should be relegated to farming and technical occupations.

Hhites were often careful to point out that there were a fe\v "good Negroes" but the "bad" ones were so numerous that they made it hard on all Blacks. Many of Hells' contemporaries seemed to 92

believe this rationalizat1.on. For example, journalist~ Amanda Smith

1 Jerr:and, wrote an article based on the assumption that "bad ' Negroes made it hard for the 11 good" ones. Jemand said:

I have often thought if the best class of Southern whites knew the best class of colored people in their midst there would be less trouble and less discrimination against us; but just here is the worst phase of the qu.estion. The whites do not know us, and make no difference in their treatment. They class us all together. The negro of police court fame is the only one known in the South.80

Hells! wd.ting, on the other hand, was usually characterized by some degree of race pride. She consistently attacked the theory that black people were inferior.

Hells was a very religious woman, but she never missed an op·- portunity to criticize the Church for not speaking out against lynchings. She exposed racism in the church and implored her Christian fellows to uphold the principles of a reli.gion based on the golden rule.

She had a great deal of respect for and faith in the press, believing that there was no agency so effective in reach::f.ng and elevating a people. Hmvever, she was, at times, very critical of the press-- particularly the white press -- and she encouraged Blncks to support the black press so that it might be improved.

Very early in her life, Ida B. Wells perceived that the Ameri- ean way of life lvas based on hypocrisy. She saw that Americans ~vere quick to point out the virtues of democ.racy and the evils present in other go·•Jernments, while at the same time they participated in and con- tribut~d to gross injustices in the United States. She studied the 93

relationship between Great Britain and the United States and correctly deduced that if she could get the press and pulpit in the "mother country" to denounce lynching, then the leaders of the younger United

States would eventually follmv suit. Hells gave many Europeans their first glimpse of the true condition of black people in America, and be cause people in foreign countries began to criticize lynching in the

United States, the U.S. was forced to take a closer look at the condi tion of her black citizens.

Hells was probably the first journalist -- certainly the first black ~voman journalist -- to point out the economics of lynching. The three grocers lynched in Memphis, Tennessee had successfully competed with the local lvhite grocer for black patronage. Though the condition of Blacks follmving slavery ~.;as often similar to their condition during slavery, there w·ere enough successful black businessmen to threaten

Southern \Vhites. Lynching those Blacks ~.;rho were successful -- es pecially those who lvere financially successful -- \vas the Southern

Hhite's way of alleviating the problem.

i~ells decided to make Chicago her home when she visited the city during the Horld's Columbian Exposition in 1893. She bought the

Chicago Cons~vato~- from Ferdinand L. Barnett, shortly before her marriage to him in 1895.

\.Jells- Barnett spent the rest of her life in Chicago and she continued her fight for justice on many different levels. She con tinued to write and became involved in many civic activities, including the 'vomen' s club movements and the Negro Fellowship League. 94

NOTES FOR CHAPTER IV

1Norman B. Hood, The Hhite Side of a Black Subject (Chicago: American Publishing House, 1897), PP•. 381-382.

2In The Afro-American Press and Its Editors, Irvine Garland Penn listed these publications as The Ne"t..r York Age, Detroit Plain dealer, Indianapolis Horld, Gate City Press, Little Rock Sun, Hem phis Watchman, Chattanooga Justice and Christian Index.

3Irvine Garland Penn, The Afro-Am.~r:ican Press and Its Editors {New York: Arn() Press and the New York Times, 1969), p. 410.

4Alfreda Duster, Crusade for Justice: Ida B. Wells-Barnett (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1970), p. 35. 5 Ibid., p. 38. 6 Ibid. 7 William Loren Katz, ed., Proceedings of the National Negro Conference, 1909 (Ne"t..r York: Arno Press and the New York Times, 1969), preface.

8Duster, p. 41.

9"Senator Bruce, 11 The New York Age, September 12, 1891.

10"Senator Bruce and the Race, 11 The Ne,., York Age, August 8, 1891.

11Ibid. 12 Edgar A. Toppin, Biographical History of Blacks in America Since 1528 (New York: NcKay Publishers, 1971), p. 447. 13 Duster, pp. 40-41. 14 Marion Marzolf, 11 The Woman Journalist: Colonial Printer to City Desk," Journalism History 1 (Winter 1974-75), p. 103.

15Edwin Emery, The Press and America (Englm..rood Cliffs: Pren tice-Hall, Inc., 1972), p. 307.

16 Duster, p. 36. 95 ...

17 "The Lynchers Hince," The New York Age, September 19, 1891. 18 John Hope Franklin, From Slavery to Freedom (Ne,., York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1965), p. 306. 19 Roland E. Holseley, "Ida B. Hells-Barnett: Princess of the Black Press," Reachout (September 7, 1975), p. 4.

20 Duster, p. 52.

21John H. Bracey, Jr., August Meier and Elliott Rud,V"ick, The Afro-Americans: Selected Documents (Boston: Allyn and Bacon, Inc., 1972)' p. 359. 22 Duster, p. 58. 23 Milton Meltzer, In Their Own 1-Jords: A History of the American~ro, 1865-1916 (New York: Thomas Y. CrmV"ell Company, 1965), p. 173. 24 Ida B. Wells, "Southern Horrors," On Lynchings (New York: Arno Press and the Ne\V" York Times, 1969), p. 4. 25 Gunnar Myrdal, An American Dilemma (New York: McGraw-Hill Book Company, 1964), p. 910. 26 Duster, pp. 64-65. 27 Ibid., p. 70.

28Professor August Meier, Kent State University, as cited in introduction, On Lynchings. 29 Roland E. Wolseley, Reachout, p. 5. 30 Ida B. Hells, On Lynchings, p. 3. 31 Gerda Lerner, Black Homen in Hhite America (New York: Random House, 1972), p. 525.

32see, for example, Mary C..'hurch Terrell, "Lynching from a Negro's Point of View" North American Review, vol. 178, no. 571 (June 1904), pp. 853-868, and "How to Stop Lynching," The '-loman's Era, vol. 1, no. 2 (1894), pp. 8-9. 33 Monroe A. Majors, Noted Negro Homen: Their Triumphs and Activities (Freeport, New York: Books for Libraries Press, 1971), p.189. 3/J The fourth week in June, 1892, the New York ~ had on the front page a seven-column article by Wells which gave names, dates, and places of many lynchings for alleged rape. 96

35Duster, p. 71.

36According to Bracey, et al, in 1892, 161 black people were lynched. (The Afro-Americans: Selected Documents, p. 302.) 37 Duster, p. 61.

38Editorial, Nemphis Commercial Appeal, Nay 25, 1892, as cited in Alfreda Duster, p. 66.

39 Editorial, Evening Scimitar, May 25, 1892, as cited in Bracey, et al, p. 345.

40 Emery, p. 215.

41Duster, pp. 62-63.

42Matthews freelanced to the New York Times, the New York Herald, and the New· York Sunday Hercury. She was a New York corres pondent for the Detroit Plaindealer, the National Leader and the Southern Christian Recorder. She also wrote for the 1vashington Bee, the Boston Advocate, the Cleveland Gazette, the New York Age and the A.M.E. Church Review. Ruffin wrote for the Boston Courant and the Woman's Era.

43Duster, p. 81. 44 Nellie F. Hossell, The Hork of the Afro-American Woman (Philadelphia: GeorgeS. Fergus~n Co., 1908), p. 35.

45The Chicago Republica~ was founded in 1865, and in 1872 it became the Inter-Ocean a staunch Republican spokesman. It led in introducing mechanical improvements, installing a color press in 1892, the first of American newspapers. Under the reform-minded H. H. Kohl saat, the Inter-Ocean 1;o1as the only Chicago daily to cover black affairs 1;o1ith understanding. (See Allan H. Spear, Black Chicago, p. 232). 46 Duster, P· 125. 47 Chicago Inter-Ocean, April 2' 1894, p. 12. 48chicago Inter-Ocean, April 9, 1894, p. 8.

49 chicago Inter-Ocean, Hay 19, 1894, p. 16. 50 Ibid. 51 Chicago Inter-Ocean, June 25, 1894, p. 10. 52 chicago Inter-Ocean, Hay 19, 1894, p. 16. 53chicago Inter-Ocean, May 28, 189l}, p. 6. 97

54Luther P. Jackson, Jr., "The Popular Hedia: Part 1, The Mission of Black Newsmen, 11 in Mabel Smythe, The Black American Refer ence Book (Englewood Cliffs, New· Jersey: Prentice-Hall, Inc., 1976), p. 851.

55"Iola's Southern Field," The New York Age, November 19, 1892.

56Ibid.

57 Ibid.

58"The Jim Crow Car: A Homan's Opinion of the Infamous Thing," The New'York Age, August 8, 1891.

59Ida B. lvells, et al, The Reason ~Vhy the Colored ~merican Is Not in the Horld's Columbian Exyosition (Chicago, 1893), p. 1. 60 Ida B. Hells-Barnett, "Lynching and the Excuse for It" Independent (May 16, 1901) p. 1132.

61Ibid., p. 1135. 62 Ida B. Wells-Barnett, "Our Country's Lynching Record" Survey 29 (February 1, 1913), p. 574.

63Ida B. Wells-Barnett, "Lynch La~v in America" Arena 23 (January, 1900), pp. 15-24.

6 1 ' Tbid.

65rda B. Wells-Barnett, 11 The Negro's Case in Equity" Ne~v York Independent (April 26, 1900), p. 1010.

66 Ibid., p. 1011. 6 7 Ibid. 68 Ida B. l\lells-Barnett, "How Enfranchisement Stops Lynching" Original Rights Hagazine (June, 1910), p. 161.

69The Chicago Defender, January 1, 1910, as cited in Duster, p. 320. 70 Memphis Daily Commercial, Nay 17, 1892, as cited in "Southern Horrors," p. 17. 71 MemphisJEvening Scimita£, June 4, 1892, as cited in "Southern Horrors, 11 pp. 17-18. 9R

72Edwin Emery described Henry H. Grady as the "most brilliant of the southern newspaper-makers of the period. • • who in his brief 39 years demonstrated the qualities of a great reporter and managing editor." (The Press and America, p. 294.)

73rda B. Hells, "Southern Horrors," reprinted in On Lynchings (New York: Arno Press and the New· York Times, 1969), p. 20.

74Ibid., p. 23. 75 Romeo B. Garrett, Famous First Facts About Negroes (New York: Arno Press, 1972), p. 104.

76 rda B. \vells, "Southern Horrors,"pp. 7-10.

77 Ibid.

78Ibid.

79rda B. Wells, "Mob Rule in New Orleans," reprinted in On Lynchings (New York: Arno Press and the Ne'" York Times, 1969), p.3.

80 Amanda Smith J emand, "A Southern lvoman' s Appeal for Justice" Independent 52 (February 21, 1901), p. 438. , CHAPTER V

IDA B. WELLS-BARNETT DURING THE YEARS 1895 - 1931

This chapter will deal with Ida B. Hells' activities bet,veen the years 1895, when she married Ferdinand L. Barnett, and 1931, the year that she died.

Because her activities were not unrelated to other historic and journalistic events taking place during this time, the author will correlate her activities with some of the significant events taking place in America.

In 1895, the year Ida Wells married Ferdinand L. Barnett, journalists William Randolph Hearst and Joseph Pulitzer competed with each other in reporting atrocity stories of Spanish brutality in Cuba.

Spanish oppression in Cuba led to a revolution there in 1895 and the

United States sympathized with the rebels, particularly after Spanish

General Valeriano ("Butcher") Weyler established concentration camps to prevent rebel attacks on sugar plantations. Hearst's Journal published a letter stolen from the mails by Cuban revolutionaries and written by the Spanish Hinister to the United States, that depicted President

McKinley as a spineless politician. 1 Six days later the American bat- tleship Maine was blown up in Havana harbor, killing 266 Americans, and

American newspapers, particularly Hearst's Journal and Pulitzer's Worl~, blamed the Spanish for the sinking. 2

99 100

The t\vO decades preceding 1900 have been called "The Years of

American Imperialism."3 American imperialists felt that the United

States should expand overseas in order to build American prestige,

spread Christianity and the benefits of civilization ("the white man's

burden"), and protect American strategic interests. The anti-imperial-

ists argued that imperialism was against An1erican traditions and incon-

sistent with democratic government.

In 1899 Filipinos rebelled and attacked American forces at

Manila. This rebellion against American rule lasted until Harch 23,

1901, when the Philippine leader, Aguinaldo, was captured. Some ob-

servers have cited this "war" as the most unpopular ever fought by the

United States, as many Americans believed that insurgent Filipinos

should be given their independence.4

Much of the ne\vS that Americans received regarding the Cuban

revolution, the Filipino rebellion and other international affairs carne

from crusading newspapers. Of Pulitzer and his crusading World, Emery has written:

Joseph Pulitzer and his Ne-.;.,r York World became increasing ly effective as 11 people's champions" in the years which followed the Spanish-American War. In foreign affairs the World vigorously opposed the annexation of the Philip pines and the imperialism of the Caribbean policy. It continued to support the internationalist movement and the policy of peaceful arbitration of the world's problems, which it had espoused during the Venezuelan crisis. In domestic politics, this stand of the Horld on foreign policy led it to support Hilliam Jennings Bryan for ~resi dent in 1900 on an "anti-imperialism" platform • •

:But years before e:i.ther the Cuban revolution or the Filipino rebellion, some black people had observed that the United States was 101

eager to dispatch American soldiers to other countries to protect the

lives and liberties of foreign citizens while refusing to protect black

Americans in the United States. As early as 1892, Ida B. Hells criti-

cized the federal government's protective attitude toward foreign

citizens and its indifference to Blacks. Furthermore, during the

Horld's Columbian Exposition in 1893, Frederick Douglass wrote:

He would like for instance to tell our visitors • • • that the National Government is not a rope of sand, but has both the pmver and the disposition to protect the lives and liberties of American cittzens of what ever color, at home, not less than abroad; that it will send its men-of-,var to chastise the murder of its citizens in New Orleans or in any other part of the south as readily as for the same purpose it will send them to Chili, Hayti or San Domingo •.•• But unhappily, nothing of all this can be said. 6

Several scholars of nineteenth century American' imperialism have cited this period as being one of the '"orst for American black people. 7 William z. Foster has written that the development of imperialism resulted in vicious attacks upon the already meager civil rights of black people -- in a great strengthening of the Jim Crow system. 8 Even the many black soldiers '"ho helped fight America's '"ars were treated unjustly. For example, following the Spanish-American war, president Theodore Roosevelt discredited the service of black soldiers in the war.9

By 1895, women had already made a significant impact on Ameri-

can journalism. Before the Civil War women journalists of note in- eluded Nargaret Fuller of the Ne·h.,. Yor.k Tribune, Jane Grey S'visshelm,

Anne Royal, Emily Verdery Betty, Cornelia Walter and Nary Ann Shadd 102

Cary, a black \Wman. Nary Shadd Cary is believed to be the first

black woman newspaper editor. She wrote a pamphlet, "Notes on Canada

Hest" and helped to found, finance and ~vrite the first antislavery weekly newspaper in West Canada, The Provincial Freeman. She was the

editor of The Provincial Freeman from 1854 to 1S56. 10

Frank Luther l'1ott wrote that "tvomen flocked into ne>vspaper work i n t h e e1.gnt. • i es. ull In the late 1880s, the number of women journ- 12 a 1J.sts. i ncreased as many b ecarne spec1a. 1" 1sts i n women ' s news. In 1887

EH.zabeth (Nellie Ely) Cochrane feigned insanity in order to ~vrite an expose of·the infamous Blackwell's Island asylum. Her stories on the poor. conclit:tons at the asylum led the Sunday feature section t~-10 weeks in a row. 13 She continu~d to write stunt expose articles and she was

front page news _in 1890 _when she went on a globe-circling tour that

lasted 72 days. Helen Dare (Elizabeth Brough) wrote stunt stories f:or

San Francisco papers and Dorothy nare wrote about her experience as the first woman in New York to ride in an automobile. 14

Black women, on the other hand, were not forced to resort to dizzy self-exploitation to be heard. According to the editor of .Th~

JoY-_rnalist, a professional journal, "The black woman in journalism occupied a special place because the black man had not contested her every step toward recognition for they had worked side by side on the 15 plantations and continued this arrangement in other spheres." Black women had a predetermined cause -- freedom and justice for black people -- and willing listeners among Blacks and some Whites •

.A..c.; the population increased :j_n American cities 1.n the t>w decades preceding the tT,;rentieth century, ne~v problems arose: crime 103

increased;16 the sanitation system \vorsened; child labor was a common practice and more people were forced to live in tenement slum dwellings.

Chicago, since the depression of the 1870s, had been a focal point of industrial conflict in ~~erica.

The railroad strike of 1877 had brought Chicago to the brink of open warfare and left a bitterness among the working people that provided fertile soil for social ist and anarchist organizers. The Haymarket episode nine years later symbolized an era in American history; it dramatized the determination of the business interests to maintain the status quo. 17

These were some of the prevailing conditions in Chicago when Hells made the decision to marry Ferdinand Barnett and to make Chicago her home. Some black people protested that in marrying, she was abandoning the crusade for justice. ~\fells-Barnett wrote in her autobiography:

Strange as it may seem after word ~;..ras sent out to the country, [that she was to be married] there arose a united protest from my people. They seemed to feel that I had deserted the cause, and some of them censured me rather severely in their ne\..rspapers for having done so. They were more outspoken because of the loss to the cause than they had been in holding up my hands when I was trying to carry a banner. However, I felt that as they did not understand it would ~eem rather out of place for me to try to make them do so. 1

Wells-Barnett's anti-lynching crusades often left her phy- sically and emotionally exhaus·ted. She wrote of her feelings prior to her marriage to Ferdinand Barnett:

I felt that I had done all that one human being could do in trying to keep the matter before the public in my coun· try and in trying to find that righteous public sentiment 104

which would help to put a stop to these terrible lynchings. I had gone from the Atlantic to the Pacific in this endeavor, earning every dollar of my expenses connected 'tvith my trip by ad dresses delivered to my O'tvn people. Thus it seemed to me that I had done my duty. So, when at last I came back to Chicago, in June 1895, it was to accept the offer of a home of my mvn ••• 19

In the face of mounting discrimination in the 1890s, many black people formed self-help organizations. The Colored Homen's Club

Movement of New York which gained nationwide support during the 1890s, was one such program. Wells-Barnett first became interested in the women's club movement when she was exiled from Memphis and the Homen's

Loyal Union organized to support her after she lost the Free Speech.

In an effort to establish a women's organization in Chicago, vJells told Chicago black women about the formation of organizations of black women in the East. Her ideas 'tvere met with enthusiasm anG.

the Chicago lvomen' s Club was formed. In 1894 this club became the

Ida B. Wells Club. 20 Every week prominent persons addressed the meetings and one of the Club's first projects was to raise money for

the prosecution of a white policeman who had killed a black man on

Chicago's ~vest side.

Subsequently, Wells-Barnett was an active member of the asso-

ciation of Colored lvomen' s Clubs founded in Boston in 1895. She was also at the forefront of a movement to have black \vomen 1 s clubs incor- porated into the all-white General Federation of Clubs.

Wells-Barnett '

The agitation in the club life of white and colored women had reached a crucial stage about this t:i.me 105

[1898-1900]. As colored women greH more experienced in the exercise of club life, having formed their o~vn state and national organizations, they naturally ex pected recognition in clubdom. The Chicago Homen's Club [a white organization] had almost been rent in twain a few years before because of the admission of a lone colored woman to its membership.21

In 1894, Wells-Barnett met the white suffragist, Susan B.

Anthony. Subsequently, they became close associates though disagree-.

ing on many issues. One major point of contention was the question of women's suffrage. Anthony believed that the millennium ,.muld come when women got the ballot, but Hells-Barnett believed, as many black \•7omen believed during this time, that equal rights for black people should

come before women got the ballot. Hells-Barnett once said to Anthony,

"Knowing women as I do, and their petty outlook on life, although I be-

lieve that it is right they should have the vote, I do not believe that

the exercise of the vote is going to change women's nature nor the

political situation."22

However, Wells-Barnett continued to work for women's suffrage, remaining a member of the ~Jomen' s Suffrage Association throughout her

life. In 1913, she organized the first suffrage club among black women, the Alpha Suffrage Club. She gained the support of black \vomen when she proposed that they could use the vote to the advantage of black people as well as 1vomen. 23

In 1897, after having two children, carrying them throughout

Illinois as she made political speeches, attended ~.rotnen' s club meetings, and edited the Chicago Conservator, Wells-Barnett decided to resign the editorship of the Conservator and the presidency of the Ida B. l~ells 106

Club. Before resigning from the Club, ~hough, she helped the Club or

ganize a kindergarten unit in the black district of Chicago. At that

time any attempt to organize a separate black institution was met with

stiff opposition from those who regarded it as a form of self-segrega

tion.24 Wells-Barnett was surprised to find fear of segregation ham

pering an attempt to supplY the needs of black children. However, de

spite the opposition, including a "battle royal"25 '..rith some of Chi

cago's leading citizens, the Ida B. Hells Club, after only a few months, was able to open the kindergarten. The Club never wanted the kindergarten to be segregated; in fact, most Club members strongly

opposed segregation. Their argument was that the needs of the

children were primary, and that if they had to set up a separate insti

tution to give the children what they needed, then segregation might be

an unfortunate side effect.

Wells-Barnett had often fought segregation -- in trains, in various organizations, in schools --- and in 1900 she criticized the

Chicago Tribune for promoting segregation in public schools. For over

t\vO weeks the Tribune printed articles that tended to show the benefits

of a separate school system for the races in Chicago. Interviews with

parents of children who struck against having a black school teacher were printed. Anti-integrationists from school systems in St. Louis,

Baltimore and Washington, D. C. were quoted. There were no interviews with black people or with those who had had any experience in inte

grated schools.

Wells-Barnett addressed a letter of protest to the editor of

the Tribune and w·hen there \vas no reply, she 'vent to Robert W. 107

Patterson, editor of the Tribune, and asked him to present the arguments of those opposed to segregation. 'vells-Barnett wrote:

••• he let me see that his idea on the subject of racial equality coincided with those of the white people in the South 'tvith whom he had been in constant association at his winter home in Thomasville, Georgia. He said he did not believe that it was right that ig norant Negroes should have the right to vote and to rule white people because they were in the majority ••• Mr. Patterson further informed me that he did not have time to listen to a lot of colored people on the sub ject but that he would publish as much of my letter as he could find space for, when they got around to it. • • That was as much as much as I could get out of him, and I carne aHay feeling that with the des tiny of the race in Chicago in the hands of the young grandsons of Joseph Nedill, young fellows who had not been long out of college, and who were entirely out of sympathy with us as a race, the case indeed looked bad. 26

Hells-Barnett then called Jane Addams of Hull House and explained the situation to her. The follo"t-Jing Sunday, Addams called together a group of influential 'tvhite people -- editors, ministers and soc.ial vmrkers. Wells-Barnett acquainted this group with the

Tribune's segregationist articles and of Patterson's refusal to cease the articles or to even give black people a voice in the matter. A committee of seven persons, with Addams as chairperson, was appointed to call upon the Tribune.

\vells-Barnett said, "I do not know 'tvhat they did or what argument was brought to bear, but I do know that the series of articles ceased and from that day until this there has been no further efforts made by the Chicago Tribune to separate the schoolchildren on the basis of race."27 108

By the turn of the century, lynching of black people reached

astounding heights. In 1898, 103 black people ~.rere lynched; in 1899,

87 black people were lynched; in 1900, this figure rose to 89 and in

1901, 108 black people were lynched in the United States.28 Still, the

federal government refused to use its authority to. do m.ray ~vi th the

crime, declaring that lynchings were a state matter. On February 21,

1898, Frazier B. Baker, a black postmaster of Lake City, South Carol

ina, was lynched. 29

Because Baker ~.ras a federal officer, \-Jells-Barnett felt that

at last the federal government would do its part to punish the per-

petrators of the crime. On Harch 21, 1898, Ida B. Wells-Barnett, along with a Chicago delegation of Illinois congressmen, called on President

HcKinley to protest lynchings and to demand that something be done to

stop the murders of black people.

Wells-Barnett said to the President:

Hr. President, the colored citizens of this country in general, and in Chicago in particular, desire to re spectfully urge that some action be taken by you as chief magistrate of this great nation, first, for the apprehension and punishment of the lynchers of Postmaster Baker, of Lake City, South Carolina; second, we ask indemnity for the widow and children, both for the mur der of their husband and father, and for injuries sus tained by themselves; third, we most earnestly desire that national legislation be enacted for the suppression of the national crime of lynching. For nearly twenty years lynching crimes, \vhich stand side by side with Armenian and Cuban outrages, have been committed and permitted by this Christian nation. Nowhere in the civilized world save the United States of America do men, possessing all civil and political power, go out in bands of-50 to 5,000 to hunt down, shoot, hang or burn to death a single individual, unarmed and absolutely pmverless. Statistics shm.r that nearly 10,000 American citizens have been lynched in the past 20 years. To our 109

appeals for justice the stereotyped reply has been that the government could not interfere in a state matter. Postmaster Baker's case was a federal mat ter, pure and simple. He died at his post of duty in defense of his country's honor, as truly as did ever a soldier on the field of battle. We refuse to believe this country, so powerful to defend its citizens abroad, is unable to protect its citizens at home. Italy and China have been indemnified by this government for the lynching of their citizens. We ask that the government do as much for its mvn. 30

Hells-Barnett's efforts proved fruitless, for though HcKinley promised to investigate the lynching matter, nothing was actually done.

In the years following 1898, l\Tells-Barnett continued her fight to secure justice for black people and to stop lynchings. In 1915 when

Joseph "Chicken Joe" Campbell, a trusty at Joliet Penitentiary >vas accused of sexually assaulting and then burning the w·arden' s wife to death, Hells-Barnett ~.rrote an appeal in the Record Herald which urged the people of Illinois to see that he was given a fair trial. She also traveled to Joliet to hear Chicken Joe's story and arranged for her husband to serve as his l~wyer.31

In the decades following the turn of the century, an ominous current of racial violence was manifest and in 1908 a riot broke out in

Springfield, Illinois. Many l\lhites attacked Blacks and in at least two cases, lynchings ivere planned. In one case, a mob tried to lynch two black murder suspects even though the victims, in both cases, were also black. In another instance, a group of \V'hite laborers threatened to leave their jobs unless their black co-workers \V'ere fired. 32

In the weeks following the three-day Springfield race riot,

Ida Hells-Barnett organized the Negro Fellowship League, becoming its 110

president. The purpose of the Negro Fellmo1ship League ~vas to "take up 33 all matters affecting the interest of our race," and under the

leadership of Wells-Barnett, the League worked to eliminate injustices

against black people. Further, in 1910, in an effort to help poor

Blacks, particularly those who had recently migrated from the South,

the Negro Fellowship League set up headquarters in a poor section of

Chicago and provided lodging, recreation facilities, a reading room and a job referral service. Mrs. Victor Lawson, wife of the publisher of

the Chicago Daily News, anonymously assumed all expenses for the Negro

Fellmvship League Center for three years. 34 Hells-Barnett had hoped

for support from middle and upper class Blacks, but they were unwilling

to go into this poor section of Chicago. 35

In 1913 Hells-Barnett ~vas appointed adult probation officer, the first Black and the first woman to hold this position. 36 Harold F.

Gosnell 'tvrote in Negro Politicians: "The first \voman adult probation officer whom he [Chief Justice Harry Olson] appointed was Nrs. Ida

Hells-Barnett, 't..rho held the position for three years. There have been other colored probation officers, but none have been as aggressive in race matters as Hrs. Barnett. n37

In 1909 Hells-Barnett 'tvas the only Chicago Black to sign the

call for the conference that led to the establishment of the National

Association for the Advancement of Colored People. 38 In the call for

the conference, Os't·mld Garrison Villard, the grandson of Hilliam Lloyd

Garrison, ~oJ"rote, "We call upon all believers in democracy to join in a national conference for the discussion of present evils, the voicing of protests, and the renewal of the struggle for civil and political 111

liberty. 11 39

The 1909 conference, kno~vn as the National Negro Conference, was the product of two major developments in the first decade of the

twentieth century: 1) the deteriorating civil and political status

of black peoplecouplerlwith an alarming increase in violence against

them and 2) a reaction by black militants and white liberals against

the gospel of accommodation and gradualism preached by Booker T.

Washington.4° Booker T. Washington believed that black people should

fit into a niche of servitude and labor in America. According to

Gunnar Hyrdal:

[He] was prepared to give up social and political equality, even to soft-pedal the protest against inequalities in justice. He t-7as also willing to flatter the Southern whites and be harsh tmvard the Negroes if the Negroes were only allowed to tvork undisturbed with their white friends for education and business. But neither in education nor in business did he assault the basic inequal ities. 41

Ida B. Wells-Barnett was a firm opponent of Booker T. Hashing 42 ton. At the 1898 convention of the Afro-American Council, where

Booker T. Washington was still basking in the glory of his Atlanta

Exposition Address of 1895, she attacked his accommodationism. She said that Washington was seriously mistaken in his notion that Blacks could gain their rights merely by economic advancement. "He must educate the white people out of their 250 years of slave history~" she declared. l~3

In a 1904 World Today article Wells-Barnett said: 112

Industrial education for the Negro is Booker T. Washington's hobby. He believes that for the masses of the Negro race an elementary education of the brain and a continuation of the education of the hand is not only the best kind, but he knows it is the most popular w-ith the \vhite South. • • Mr. \vashington' s reply to his critics is that he does not oppose the higher educat~on, and offers in proof of this statement his Negro faculty. But the critics observe that nmvhere does he speak for it, and they can remember doz ens of instances \vhen he has condemned every system of education save that which teaches the Negro how to work • -

Does some one ask a solution of the lynching evil? Mr. Hashington says in substance: Give me money to educate the Negro and when he is taught hoVJ to '..:rork, he vlill not commit the crime for ·w'hich lynch ing is done. Mr. ~Jashington knoVJs ~v-hen he says this that lynching is not invoked to punish crime but color, and not even industrial education will change that •••• if Mr. Washington can not use his great abilities and influence to speak in defense of and demand for the rights withheld Hhen dis cussing the Negro question, for fear of injury to his school by those VJho are intolerant of Negro man hood, then he should be just as unwilling to injure his race for the benefit of his school.44 .

Ida Wells-Barnett was one of those chosen to speak at the

1909 National Negro Conference. At this conference Hhich led to the formation of the NAACP, she said:

The lynching record for a quarter of a century merits the thoughtful study of the American peo ple. It presents three salient facts: First: Lynching is color line murder. Second: Crimes against women is the excuse, not the cause. Third: It is a national crime and requires a national remedy.

The only certain remedy is an appeal to lmv. Law breakers must be made to know that human life is sacred and that every citizen of this country is first a citizen of the United States and secondly 113

a citizen of the state in which he belongs. This nation must assert itself and defend its federal citizenship at home as \V'ell as abroad. The strong arem of the government must reach across state lines whenever unbridled lawlessness defies state lmV"s and must give to the individual citizen under the Stars and Stripes the same measure of protec tion which it gives to him when he travels in foreign lands •

Federal protection of American citizenship is the remedy for lynching. Foreigners are rarely lynched in America. If, by mistake, one is lynched, the national government quickly pays the damages. The recent agitation in California against the Japanese compelled this nation to recognize that federal pmV"er must yet assert itself to protect the nation from the treason of sovereign states. Thousands of American citizens have been put to death and no President has yet raised his hand in effective protest, but a simple insult to a native of Japan was quite sufficient to stir the government at Hashington to prevent the threatened wrong. If the government has pm..rer to pro tect a foreigner from insult, certainly it has power to save a citizen's life ••••

As a final word, it would be a beginning in the right direction if this conference can see its way clear to establish a bureau for the investigation and publica tion of the details of every lynching, so that the public could know that an influential body of citizens has made it a duty to give the \V'idest publicity to the facts in each case; that it ;..rill make an effort to secure expressions of opinion all over the country against lynching for the sake of the country's fair name; and lastly, but by no means least, to try to influence the daily papers of the country to refuse to become accessory to mobs either before or after the fact. 45

In its first year of existence the NAACP launched a program to widen the industrial opportunities for Blacks, to seek greater police

protection for Blacks, and to carry on a crusade against lynching and

lmvlessness. 46 The NAACP's staff of black and -.;..rhite lmvyers Here

ready to defend those accused of crimes because of their color. Their 114

first case involved a New Jersey black man accused of murder. There was no evidence against him and the NAACP won his release. 47 The

NAACP also published The Crisis magazine. Under the editorship of

William E. B. DuBois, the magazine stressed the accomplishments of black people and publicized practices of discrimination. Black poets were often given their first audience through the pages of The

Crisis.48 By the end of its first year, The Crisis had 12,000 readers.

Eventually its circulation rose to more than 100,000. 49

Another type of magazine that flourished during this period when Crisis was just getting started, dealt t.vi th material written by a group.of people that Theodore Roosevelt named "muckrakers." Muckrake literature was literature of exposure and muckrakers advocated legislation to correct social iils. Among other things, they attacked slum conditions, big business and corruption in government. 50 However, the black person generally could not rely on the muckrakers for substantial assistance. For example, one muckraker, Ray Stannard Baker, tvhile not defending lynching, sought to explain it in terms of the distrust of the Southern white man of his own judicial processes. Frederick

Douglass pointed out the fallqcy of this argument when he said:

The man . • . tvho says he is for Lynch Lavl because he honestly believes that the courts of that section [the South] are likely to be too merciful to the Negro charged tvith this crime, either does not knmv 51 the South, or is fit for prison or an insane asylum.

In addition, while muckrakers usually advocated legislation to correct social ills, Baker counseled that time, patience, and education were the only solutions to the 11 Negro problem. "52 115 .'

Ida B. \-Tells-Barnett ~vas one of the few journalists tvho prac-

ticed muckraking to the advantage of black people, as she continually exposed discrimination and injustice wherever she saw it. By the early

1900s it was clear to most observers -- both black and ~vhite -- that

the status of Blacks in Chicago was deteriorating and some saw paral-

lels bettveen developments in Chicago and the hardening of Jim Crmv pat terns in the South. 53

Wells-Barnett reported on the various riots that sprung up as a result of the grmving tide of race hatred, including those riots in

Elaine, Arkansas, Atlanta, Georgia, Springfield, Illinois, and Ne~v

Orleans, Louisiana. In 1917 she traveled to East Saint Louis to investigate the riot in which 150 Blacks were killed. She reported what she saw to the Chica~efender and made appeals to her readers to support the black people who had been imprisoned for trying to protect their homes and their lives.

In this same year (1917), the United States entered World

\.Jar I, and began plans for mobilizing an overseas army. The question of whether or not to use black soldiers became prominent. There tvere those ~vho advocated that the black man should not be used at all; that he be excluded from the draft or if drafted that he be mobilized for work only. Hhen in April 1917 the universal service bill was before

Congress, the opposition of some of the Southern Congressmen was expressed as follmvs: "He of the South cannot stand for inclusion of

Negroes in the universal service plan. It ~vould bring down upon the districts ~vhere Negroes far exceed the "tvhites in number a danger far greater t h an any f ore1gn. f oe • • • • .,54 116

In August 1917 the l.Jar Department announced that: 11 The rule of the regular army in the matter of the training of the colored troops as separate organizations ~vill be adhered to. They Hill 55 not be called last, but they ~vill be called separately. "

Hhile h'orld Har I raged, riots continued to plague American cities. Furthermore in the "Red Summer" of 1919, during the grim postwar period of racial strife and violence, tvJenty-tHo race riots 56 ' took place. Less than three ~veeks before the bloody race riots in

Chicago, Ida B. Wells-Barnett Harned in the Chicago Tribune:

Just such a situation as this • . . led up to the East St. Louis riot ..• Will the legal, moral and civic forces of this town stand idly by and take no notice of these preliminary outbreaks? . • • I implore Chicago to set the ~vheels of justice in motion before it is too late and Chicago is disgraced by some of the bloody outrages that have disgraced East St. Louis.57

Hells-Barnett's article ~·ms indeed an omen for on July 27, 1919 a bloody riot began in Chicago. 1•!hites caused the drmvning of a black swimmer ~vho had crossed the invisible line dividing the black from the 'tvhite area at a local beach, and Hhen a ~vhite policeman refused to arrest those who had caused the drowning but instead arrested a

Black on a minor charge, angry Blacks attacked the policeman. The outbreak that follmved lasted for a 'veek, with ~vhite and black mobs fighting throughout Chicago. By the end of the week, fifteen '\.-Thites 58 and twenty-three Blacks had died and many more were \•JOunded.

The year 1919 marked a turning point in American history as far as racial violence is concerned. Blacks fought back openly 117

against white attacks in greater numbers and to greater effect than

ever before. 1~omas Richard Frazier has written that in this sense,

the "Nmv Negro" spoken about so widely in the 1920s emerged from the 59 bloody street fights of the summer of 1919. Once Black soldiers re-

turned from Horld Har I they had to contend with unfair and often

brutal treatment' at home. The following is taken from an editorial in

There is scarcely a day that passes that newspapers don't tell about a Negro soldier lynched in hts uniform. • • Instead of race prejudice being modified, as some of us fondly hoped, it has become intensified. The riot that started in 'l{ashington started by attacks on Negro soldiers, and from them it was only a step to killing in nocent, defenseless Negroes ••• The returned Negro soldier, as a \vhole, is contented with simple justice. He feels himself a man like other men, and naturally he feels that if his ,country smv fit to compel him to fight for it, that country, in turn, ought to at least be grate ful and give him a man's chance in the race of life. The relatives of returned Negro soldiers \>Jere beaten and killed on the streets of l\'ashing ton, right in front of the White Rouse, under the dome of the Capitol of the greatest Republic on earth -- a Republic that \vent to war to beat down injustice, and make the world safe for democracy. Has the head of the nation uttered one word of con demnation of the mob? If so, we have failed to see it. 60

When tv1elve black soldiers were hanged in 1917 for allegedly

shooting up the city of Houston, Hells-Barnett, with the help of the

Negro Fellm.;rship League, had protest buttons made up that read: "In

Hemorial Martyred Negro Soldiers." This act nearly caused her to be

arrested by secret service agents and Hells-Barnett relayed what she

said to the agents in her autobiography: 118

I 1 d rather go dmvn in history as ~me lone Negro who dared to tell the government that it had done a das tardly thing than to save my skin by taking back what I have said. I would consider it an honor to spend vJhatever years are necessary in prison as the one member-of the race Hho protested, rather than be ,.Ji th all the· 11,999,999 Negroes who didn 1 t have to go to prison because they kept their·mouths shut. Lay one, Macduff, and damn'd be him that first cries 'Hold, enough! 61

Between 1915 and 1920, the great migration of Blacks to the

North destroyed t:he notion that the "Negro problem" would remain a

southern problem and that northerners could simply allow southern

~vhi tes to handle black people as they sar.v fit. The migration of Blacks

from the rural South to the ·.1rban North became, after 1915, a mass

movement.

Northern fever s..1ept through the South much as America fever

had infected. m1.;ch of Europe th':"oughout-the-rr:i:n-ete·errth-c-errtury-;-Sitn:~-e

\·lorld t-lar I cut off imrnigration from Europe, many Northern manufactur-

ers encouraged the poverty-stricken Blacks to leave the South. They

reet Rlacks on street corners, at churches, in barber shops, and in pool

rooms. They offered free transportation plus the prospect of high wages to any laborer who agreed to migrate. The labor agents' efforts

Here gre.atly aided by several Northern black newspapers, which painted

a. glowing picture of Northern living conditions and denounced Southern

r a'l.... ,,"1. .. ..'!,a.. ~r 62

Chica.go was a focal point of the great migration and of the

rc.1cial violence that came in its wake. The grm..ring stockyards, steel

m:l11s, and foundries of Chicago, deprived of immigrant labor by the

outbreak of w-ar in Europe, provlded ne''' and unprecedented industrial 119

opportunities for southern Blacks. 63 Nany southern Blacks Hho had

barely heard of Cleveland or Detroit kne~.; of Chicago as they read

about it in the most popular black newspaper in the country -- the

Chicago Defender.

The Great Migration helped bring about the first real mass

nationalist movement among American Blacks64 -- that of Marcus Garvey,

a West Indian tvho had come to the United States during the First VJorld

War. The Garvey Novement based its program on the conviction that

Blacks must create their mm independent nation because they would

never receive justice in a white man's country. Though his organiza

tion attracted mainly West Indian immigrants, at first, Garvey soon ap

ppealed to the black migrant from the South who found that the Northern

Promised Land offered neither promise nor land. 65

"Lynchings and race riots," said Garvey, "all tvork to our ad

vantage by teaching the Negro that he must build a civilization of his 66 own or forever remain the t.;hite man's victim. rr

Ida B. Hells-Barnett admired Garvey's dedication and she re

: ~ spected his philosophy but she felt that he tried to do too much too

quickly. She wrote: "I advised him to defer the matter. This he did

not do ••• Perhaps if Mr. Garvey had listened to my advice he need 67 not have undergone the humiliations which afterward became his."

Another response to the Great Migration was the cultural

nationalism of the 19208 expressed primarily in the literary and artis

tic movement known as the Negro Renaissance. The black writers and

artists of the Negro Renaissance described the life of the common black

people of the rural past and the city-ghetto present in an attempt t:o 120

develop black identity and race pride.68

In this period following Horld 1A)'ar I Americans had to deal

with feelings of political and social disillusionment and finally an

economic depression. There developed a nev7 conservatism among -v1hite

Americans that often lapsed into bigotry and attacks on minority groups.

This conservatism was further escalated by the spread of Communism in

Europe and the anti-war activities of the Industrial Forkers of the

World in America. A militant labor organization formed in 1905, the

I. W. W. sought the abolition of capitalism through strikes, boycotts and

sabotage.69

Blacks lived in lmv economic conditions through much of the

1920s. ~~en the stock market crash of 1929 led to the severest eco-

nomic depression in American history, Blacks were hit even harder. By 70 1932, 30% of Hhites, but 56% of Blacks were unemployed. Not only did

they lose jobs in the cities in greater number than did lVtli tes, but many of those who retained employment -- especially in agriculture -- were driven to starvation 'tvages. Hovements like the Black Shirts ~vere

organized to deprive Blacks of 'tvhat jobs they had. Unemployed Blacks,

unlike many unemployed \•fuites, had no savings upon which they could fall back in the crisis. Another disappointment to many black people was

the collapse of the "Negro Renaissance 11 movement. This movement had been giving Blacks ne~v hope for a raised status.

Between 1930 and 1933 there 'tvas utter distress and pessimism 71 among Blacks. In 1931 economic conditions in the United States Hor- sened as the bank panic spread. In the journalistic world, the Nev

York lvorlc!_ suspended publication. In this same year, the trial of nine 121

black youths began at Scottsboro, Alabama. The charge against them?

As Ida B. Hells-Barnett often said, "The same old charge of raping white women. 11

"Approaching age did not diminish perceptibly Ida B. Hells-

Barnett's zest for the advocacy of social-reform measures. She at-

tacked vice conditions, the housing situation, and new evidences of

d1scr1m1nat. . . i on f rom t h e 1 ecture p 1 at f orm an d i n ne\vspaper art1c. 1 es ••• 7.Z

But her seemingly inexhaustible energy spent itself for on Harch 25,

1931, Ida B. Wells-Barnett died suddenly after a two-day illness,

ending an incredible, lifelong fight for justice for black people. 122

NOTES FOR CHP~TER V

lEdl>lin Emery, The Press and America (Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey: Prentice-Hall, Inc., 1972), p. 367.

2 Ibi.d.

3nonald B. Cole, Handbook of American History (New York: Har court Brace and ~-Jorld, Inc., 1968), p. 162.

4 Ibid., p. 165.

SEmery,pp. 384-385.

6Ida B. \.Jells, et al, _!!le Reason lfu'.L_!he Colored American Is N~~ in the ~orld's Columbian Exposition (Chicago, 1893), pp. 3-4.

7Milton Heltzer, In Their O'tvn Words: A History of the~American Negr

8{>/illiam Z. Foster, The. Negro People in American History (New York: International Publi.sher~ Co., 1954), p. 392.

9John Hope Franklin, From Slavery to Freedom (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1965), pp. 426-427. See also Henry N. and Cecelia H. Drewry, ~fr.~~American Risto~: Past to Present (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1971), p. 197.

10 Gerda Lerner, ed., Black Women in \fuite America (New York: Random House, 1972), p. 323.

llFrank Luther Mott, American Journalism, A History: 1690-1960 (New· York~ The Macmillan Company, -1962), p. 489.

12Emery, pp. 327-328.

13Marion Marzolf, "The Woman Journalist: Colonial Pd.nter to City Desk" Journalism His~ 1 (Winter 1974-1975), p. 103.

l'•Hott, p. 599.

15The Jou!:nalif?_!:_, January 26, 1889, as cited in Harion Marzolf, pp. 103-104.

16In Chicago, for example, homicides rose from 25 per million people in 1891 to 107 per million in 1898. 123

17Allan H. Spear, Black Chicago:. ''rhe Haking of a ~~1:"_9_Q_b.ett~ (Chicago: University of Ch:i.cago- Pre~s, 1967);---p:-i:

18A1freda Duster, Crusade for Justice (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1970), p. 23-s:-·------·-

19Ibid.

20The Ida B. Hells Club later became one of the first federa ted \vomen' s clubs.

21Duster, p. 269.

22Ibid., p. 230.

23The _All?_I:!_'!_ Suffra_~Record, March 18, 1914, p. 1, as cited in Duster, p. 347.

24spear, p. 52.

· 25nuster, p. 250.

26rhid., p. 276. 27 Ibid., p. 278.

28_rhirt_y_Iears of I.ynch!ng in the United States, 1889-1918 (Nev..• York: NAACP, 1919), p. 29. Between 1889 and 1918, 2,522 Blacks were victims of lynch mobs. For a.dditional statistics, see Hilliarn Z. Foster, p. 440.

29For an account of this l:mching, see George Brown Tindall, South Carolina Negroes 1877·:J900 (Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 1952),pp. 255-256. 30 Cleveland Gazette, April 9, 1898, as cited in Herbert Aptheker, A Documentary Histor_y__ ef_..!:!"!...~Jegro PegpJ_~__ jn the United St~-~ (New York: The C:ttadel Press, 1951), p. 798.

31nuster, pp. 338-341.

32spear, p. 47.

33nuster, p. 335. 34 Spear, p. 106.

35George Sewell, n!da B. Wells" Black Co!legi~i. (May/June 1976) pp. 20-22. 12lr,.

36Edgar A. Toppin, Biographical H;istory of Blacks in America Si.nce 1.528 (New York: NcKay PUi~TiS"l1ers, 1971) ~ p. 448. ------

37Harold F. Gosnell, Negro Politician~__:_ __The Rise ~_J·1egro Politics in Chlcago (Chicago: University Press, 1935), p. 204.

38Mary White Ovington, Hmv- the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People Began (New York: National Association for the Atlvanceme~t-~-rc~ioredP~op ie ,-1914) , as cited in Spear, p. 60.

39John Hope Franklin, Fro~_lavery t.~ Freedom (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1965), p. 438.

40william Loren Katz, ed., Proceedings of the Natio~a~_!~ro ~onference, 1909 (New York: Arno Press and The Netv- York Times, 1969), preface.

41Gunnar Hyrdal, An Amer:i.can Dilemma (Netv York: McGraw-Hill Book Company, 19 64) , p. 7 39 • ------·--

42wells-Barnett tvas secretary and chairperson of the Anti Lynchi.ng Bureau of the Afro--American Council, a protest organization begun in 1890.

43spear, p. 59.

411 Ida B. Hells-Barnett, "Booker T. l•Yashington and His Critics" Wor!~Tod~ 6 (April 1904), pp. 518-521.

45wil.li.am Loren Katz, ed. , Proceedj_ngs of the National Negro Conference 1909 (New York: Arno Pres·s-an(f-the -New York Ti~es:·T969f, PP~ 174-179.

46John Hope Franklin, p. 439.

47william Loren Katz, ed., Ey~~witness (New York: Putnam and Sons, 1967), p. 350.

48rbid.

'•9 Joanne Grant, Blac~ Pro~~ (New York: St. Martinfs Press, 1968)' p. 213.

50E mery, p. 401.

Slrda B. Hells, et al, The Reason Hhy the Colored Amed_can Is Not in ~he_J.Jorl_c!_'~g_olumb_!_an~~os:i.\::ion (Chicago~ 1893), p. 8.

52John Hope Franklin, p. 431.

53spear, p. 48. 125

54Monroe N. Work, ed., Negro Year Book, 1918-1919: An Annual Encyclopedia of the Negro (Tuskegee Institute, Alabama: The Negro Year Book Publishing Company, 1919), p. 79.

55rbid.

56Thomas Richard Frazier, Afro-American HistQ!Y: P~imary Sources (Nev7 York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, Inc., 1971), p. 135.

57 chic~ Tribune, July 7, 1919, p. 4.

58spear, p. 216.

59Thomas Richard Frazier, p. 135.

60The Charleston Hessenger, October 18, 1919, as cited in Robert Kerlin, The Voice of Negro America~919 (Ne•v York: Arno Press, 1968) 61 Duster, p. 370.

62 Spear, p. 133. 63 Ibid., P· 129. 64 Myrdal, p. 746.

65Frazier, p. 136.

66Melvin Drimmer, ed., Black History: A Re~praisal (Nmv York: Doubleday, 1968), p. 398.

67 Duster, p. 382.

68Frazier, p. 136.

69Peter Gilbert, John Ed\vard Bruce (Ne\v York: Arno Press and the New York Times, 1971), p. 154.

70Toppin, p. 187.

71Myrdal, p. 754.

72 Arna Bon temps, Anypl~ce But Here (New York: Hill and tvang, 1966), p. 102. CHAPTER VI

CONCLUSION: IDA B. HELLS-BARJ.JETT 1 S INFLUENCE

Determining the affect that hlells-Barnett had on other people and institutions is central to this study. How did she affect her contemporaries? Hmv did the English respond to her when she traveled abroad to crusade against lynchings? How did she affect those pmverful institutions -- church, press and government? And finally, \vhat was the overall effect of Hells-Barnett's 'vork in the United States and abroad? Hhat Here the results of her numerous ne,V"spaper articles and speeches?

Hells-Barnett began her fight against lynchings and other injustices perpetrated against black people in the city of Memphis.

One author has written that Memphis Blacks bitterly resented racial discrimination in 1-femphis and applauded Hells-Barnett for her record of vigorous protest against the system. 1 However, \vells-Barnett wrote in her autobiography that she could not rely on support from the black people of Nemphis. Hhen she \vas fired for fighting discrimination in

Memphis schools some black people felt that she had been too rash in criticizing the school board. \-Jells-Barnett wrote:

The worst part of the experience Has the lack of ap~ preciation shmm by the parents. They simply couldn 1 t understand why one would risk a good job, even for their children. • . But I thought it was right to strike a blmv against a glaring evil and I did not regret it. Up to that time I had felt that any fight

126 127

made in the interest of the race would have its support. I learned then that I could not count on that. 2

There is some evidence that though Hells-Barnett 1.vas admired by many black people because of her defiance of white supre111acy, 3and though she had the approval of such eminent race leaders as Frederick

Douglass, Hallie Quinn Brmm, Hilliam Honroe Trotter and T. Thomas

Fortune, she often could not get the support she needed from the black masses. Throughout history, black leaders have struggled ~V'i th the problem of involving masses of Blacks and the educated middle class in the same movement. Joanne Grant has Hritten that " .•• Negro intel lectuals, as all true intellectuals,· are alienated from mass culture,"4 and perhaps it was, to some degree, this inevitable isolation that kept

Hells-Barnett from motivating the masses in the \vay that she wanted.

Hells-Barnett seemed to make a substantial effort to reach the masses by writing in a clear, simplistic styl~ on subjects that affected most black people; however, she repeatedly lamented about hmv black people failed to respond to her appeals for help in fighting injustice. An example is this passage from her autobiography:

We decided to hold a memorial service for the men whose lives had been taken and in that way utter a solemn protest. He felt that the government itself could not help but heed if \ve had a crowded out pouring of our people at a meeting which 1vould re flect dignity and credit upon us as a race . . . I then called the pastors of several of our lar.ge churches and asked which one of them ~vould donate us the use of a ~hurch for the Sunday afternoon . but [I) was given one of the many surprises of my life when every single pastor refused to let us have the use of the church.s 128

And after failing to raise enough money for another cause, she wrote that, "Again I was made to moan over the inability of our people to unite in their own behalf and hold up the hands of those of us who w·ere doing the pioneer work. "6

Saunders Redding \vrote that the black press generally did not have the support of the masses and that though 1'7ells-Barnett Hrote forceful protests against discrimination, "it \vas pretty much like shouting at the weather, like thunder without God."7 The black masses,

Redding wrote, had been conditioned to associate social force and 8 social control with individual leaders rather than with themselves.

If Hells-Barnett lacked the support of the black masses, she often lacked the support of the elite group of black intellectuals also. She frequently critcized black intellectuals for not supporting 9 blac k 1nst1tut1ons,. . . an d h er repeate d attac·s k on accommocat1ng1 . race leaders and on Booker T. Hashington, especially, were often received coolly by the black middle class. Several historians agree that most

Blacks, even most of the intellectuals, supported Booker T. H'ashington 10 and the broad outlines of his program. On the other hand, Saunders has \vritten that "The intellectuals w·ere more discouraged than filled

\vi th Hiss Barnett's bitterness. nll

Another problem \vas that many black people, as \v-ell as Hhites, believed that black men were lynched because they raped "t

Booker T. Washington, for example, said that if Blacks were taught to 12 Hork they would not rape. The editor of The Southtvestern Christian

Advocate of New Orleans said in 1919: "Mark you, \ve do not intend, much less attempt to condone or underestimate the hideousness and the 12()

13 awfulness of assault by Negroes. upon white w·omen."

Hells-Barnett wrote in "Southern Horrors 11 that the crime of rape was so revolting to the 11 better class" of Blacks that they, like the people outside the South, had often taken the Hhite man's 1vords and failed to give lynch la1v the investigation or the condemnation it de served.14

In 1893, lvells-Barnett differed Hith some members of the black middle class at the Chicago Horld' s Fair. Black Americans ~vere refused permission to set up a separate exhibit at the Fair but because the Haitian exhibit ~vas so popular, the Porld 's Fair authorities finally decided that black people could have a "Negro Day. 11 Hells-

Barnett resented this gesture because she felt that American black people should have had an exhibit from the beginning of the Fair. She also felt that a "Negro Day 11 would be degrading because the instigators of "Negro Day" planned to offer free 'tvatermelons to Blacks 1vho ~vould attend. .In a Chicago Conservator column she wrote: "The spectacle of the class of our people 1vhich 1vill come on that excursion roaming around the grounds munching 1-1atermelons, 1vill do more to lower the race in the estimation of the world than anything else."l5 Hells-Barnett's refusal to participate in "Negro Day" elicited negative response from those who had agreed to attend. An example of the response is this excerpt from a letter written by Willetta Johnson, of Boston, secretary of the "Negro Day" committee. She said:

I desire to express my surprise that one of our mm people should not appreciate the great benefit to the colored race if the Wqrld's Fair management Hill but accord them the honor of a day's recognition .•• 130

Hhy Miss ~vells in particular should attack this committee, \vhich is just as legally constituted as any committee, and the people of Massachusetts w·ho have rallied round and supported her in her hour of sorrmv and need is strange to say the least. 16

Wells-Barnett's relationship \vith the National Association

for the Advancement of Colored People, an organization \vhich consisted

of '{.Jhites and middle class Blacks, ~vas an uncertain one. Although she

is listed in most sources that deal \vith the NAACP as one of the

founders, she wasn't involved much -.vi th the group after its inception.

William E. B. DuBois17 and others had tried to keep her off the execu-

tive committee of the NAACP and Wells-Barnett, hurt by this gesture,

refused to have much to do with the group. 18 Moreover, Wells-Barnett was apparently too aggressive, too radical and too intolerant for some members of the NAACP. Hary Hhite Ovington, one of the leading white

I especially remember Monroe Trotter of Boston, and Ida B. Hells-Barnett who, when in Tennessee, had fought in her paper the first virile battle against lynching. They \vere pmverful personalities who had gone their own ways, fitted for courageous work, but perhaps not fitted to accept the restraint of or ganization.19

Furthermore, Charles Kellogg wrote that "Mrs. Hells-Barnett resented

the patronizing assumptions of the academic fe~v who wanted to keep the organization in their 0\Vll hands. n20

Hhen Wells-Barnett died, Crisis, the official publication of the NAACP, gave her a moderate notice, pointing out how her anti- lynching work was admirable, but small as compared to the work done by 131

21 the NAACP. Huch of the w·ork that the NAACP did to stop lynchings was a direct result of t.Jells-13arnett' s crusading journalism and her persuasive speeches. The NAACP did exactly what Hells-Barnett called for in her speech at the 1909 National Negro Conference that led to the founding of the NAACP,22 and yet the organization's appreciation of her was lukewarm. Furthermore, in inves-t-~gat-~ng-lynchings, the NAACP adopted l.Jells-Barnett' s practice of using ~vhite sources for statistics and documentation of lynchings. In addition, in 1910, l•!ells-Barnett took charge of a case involving Steve Green, a black tenant who killed a \vhite plantation owner in self-defense and only after he (Green) had been shot in the neck, the left arm and the right leg. Through t.Vells-

Barnett's efforts, the man \vas eventually cleared of the charges, and 23 though Crisis covered the case, it failed to mention Hells-Barnett.

t.Jells-Barnett \vas a black militant long before it became fashionable in the 1960s. As one author has ~vritten, she \vas "a militant long before militancy found a national spokesman in H. E. B. 24 DuBois. " Hells-Barnett \vas far less patient than leaders such as 25 Frederick Douglass. Hany black people Here not ready for her and some black men, especially, felt threatened by her aggressive, impul- sive and intolerant nature. In one article l\'ells-Barnett criticized black men for not standing up for their rights. She said in 1891 in the Ne~v York Age, " ••• I waited (as I had to) in the Negro \vaiting room, "tvith a score or more of the men of my race looking on Hith indif- fer~nt eyes •.• So long as the majority of them are not educated to the point of proper self-respect, so long our condition will be hope- 1126 1 ess. At least one Chi~ago _12_~_i_ender article added to the resentment 132

that some black men felt tmv-ard Hells-Barnett Hhen it said: "If ~..:re only had a few· men \vith the backbone of Hrs. Barnett, lynching Hould soon come to a halt in America."27 Moreover, Hells-Barnett said in her autobiography, "I had ••• been accused by some of our men of jumping in ahead of them and doing work without giving them a chance . u28

The fact that Hells-Barnett was a \voman had much to do with the lack of support given her. During the years that she lived, the general belief of most people was that 'l..:romen should tend to matters of the home and leave politics and leadership to the men. Some middle class black \VOmen -.;.;ere content to marry rich men and stay at home, but not Ida B. ~veils-Barnett. Though she married a prominent attorney and mothered six children, she never abandoned the fight for equality and justice for black people. However, many men -- black and \vhite -- made it difficult for her because they believed that she was "jumping in ahead of them" and doing their "t·mrk.

ivells-Barnett further alienated other black people 'l..:rhen she criticized them. At different times, she criticized Booker T. Hashing ton, Senator Blanche K. Bruce, T. Thomas Fortune, Frederick Douglass and Marc~s Garvey. Irvine Garland Penn wrote that "No writer, the male fraternity not· excepted, has been more extensively quoted; none struck harder blows at the wrongs and Heaknesses of the race."29 Hary

Hutton in "The Rhetoric of Ida B. Hells" -.:..:rrote that in the early part of Hells-Barnett's career, she often admonished Blacks that before they could be treated justly, they had to improve themselves.30

Finally, many black people undoubtedly felt that it was to their advantage to keep silent about the injustices that they saw. 133

~Iany were afraid of losing their homes, their jobs and even their

lives. As one author has pointed out, the majority of black people

lived in the South where speaking out vas not long tolerated.31 The

Southern black editors, during the time that the Free Speech ~·Tas nub- --~-- '· lished, had a reputation for not protesting too much because they were afraid. 32

Though Hells-Barnett often did not get the support she needed from the black masses, black intellectuals and established organizations and institutions, this writer would be remiss if the contributions of 'Hells-Barnett \vere made to seem minimal because of this lack of support. On the contrary, the fact that Hells-Barnett \vas able to accomplish so much nearly single-handedly suggests that she was an exceptional woman. As one writer said, 11 In the struggle against lynching in the South, she deserves more credit than any other individual, having brought this practice before the eyes of the Horld and, in so doing, having accelerated the establishment of lmv and decency in the

American South. 33

Irvine Garland Penn described Ida B. Hells-Barnett as a writer of superb ability. 34 The fact that her Hemphis Free SE_e~ch office was destroyed suggests that her ~vriting was quite effective as an irritant

11 to racist Hhites. Bontemps wrote in Anyplace But Her~ that SO telling were the paper's denunciations that one dark night a crmvd of hoodlums descended upon the plant [and] demolished the press and office . . n35

Wells-Barnett came too close to the truth ~vhen she intimated that

Southern ~vhite Homen \vere sexually attracted to black men. Further- more, other Free Speech editorials served to incense racist Hhites, 134

including those dealing w·ith black self-defense, black economic pmver, the economics of lynching, black boycotting of racist businesses and equal rights for black people.

In comparing Hells-Barnett to some of her contemporaries,

Gerda Lerner suggested that Hells--Barnett's \-7ritings were more effective as an irritant to \-7hite complacency than the \vritings of Nary

Church Terrell, Amanda Smith 3emand and Mary HcLeod Bethune. Lerner

\.;rote:

... It took coura?:e and political conviction for women like Mary Church Terrell, Amanda Smith Jemand and l,fary NcLeod Bethune to ans\ver in patient articles, arguments and speeches the slanders ano racist insults spread over the pages of national magazines. Unfor tunately, their educational effort ~·ms met \vi th rebuff, indifference and apathy .•. 36

Wells-Barnett's lectures and journalistic activities in Great

Britain in 1893 and 1894 \vere a success. Her main purpose in going abroad >vas to arouse British sentiment so that the British might influence the American press and pulpit. A Literary pi~est writer com- men ted: "The crusade \vhich Niss Ida B. \·Jells (colored), the afore- time editor o.f a journal in Nemphis, Tenn. , is making in England to arouse a sentiment against the lynching JOf negroes in the United States i 1s. b ear1ng . cons1 . d erabl e tru1t- . •••• ,37 Another writer in The

Chronicle of London said, " .•• Miss Hells may congratulate herself that her gallant efforts are already bearing this fruit, and that her words are already echoing from continent to continent."38 Further, a

New York Age editorial said of Hells-Barnett's anti-lynching crusades

11 in Europe, ••• the Afro-American has the ear of the civilized 'tvorld 135

for the first time since emancipation."39

Ahvays careful to give examples, Hells-Barnett indicted lynching as an attempt to preserve ;;.,rhi te supremacy. She informed her audiences of the increased frequency and barbarity of lynchings in the

Southern states and the failure of either local officials or North- erners to insist that legal, due process replace mob violence. Speak- ing to a group of people in New York about her trip to England, Wells-

Barnett said:

I have been endeavoring to tell the ;;.,rhole truth . . • The British people took \vith incredulity my statements that colored men were roasted or lynched in broad day light, very frequently with the sanction of officers of the law; and looked askance at statements that half gro~ boys shot bullets into hanging bodies and after cutting off toes .and fingers of the dead or dying car ried them about as trophies. They could easily have believed such atrocities of cannibals or heathens, but not of the American people, and in the land of the brave and the home of the free. But when I shm..red them photo graphs of such scenes, the neT.vspaper reports and the reports of searching investigations on the subject, they accepted the evidence of the senses against their wills. As soon as they were positively convinced resolutions ;;.,rere passed asking the American veople to put atvay from them such shame and degradation. 40

While in England, one of v._rells-Barnett' s prime targets \vas the city of Memphis. She ;;.,ras given interviews Hith several English papers and she usually sent newspaper clippings of these intervie>vS to the white Memphis press. One article in the London Sun read:

Miss Ida B. Fells is a negress, a young lady of little more than t;;.,renty years of age, a graceful, mveet-faced. intelligent, courageous girl. She hails from Nemphis, Tenn. She is not going back there just nov1, because the v1hite people are anxious to hang her up by the neck in the market place, and burn the soles of her feet, and 136

gouge her beautiful dark eyes out 1vith red-hot irons. This is what the Southern American l;vhite man does with a Negro or negress for preference, 1vhen he 1vants a holiday sensation; and ,.,hen he finds a charming vic tim, such as this sweet girl Hould make, the mayor of the tOl;Yll orders the schools to be closed, and the lit tle scholars turn out in holiday ribbons, and their parents don the Sunday go-to-meeting best, and lead the youngsters out by the hand. They all go out to see the fun, and have their photographs taken at the scene of martyrdom, and there is much rejoicing over the black sinner that repenteth not.41 -

After hearing Hells-Barnett speak, an Aberdeen (Scotland)

journalist wrote:

That the habit of treating persons with Negro blood in their veins with social contempt: bringing against the race monstrous accusations -vlithout evidence, and carrying reckless vengeance the length of wrecking property and destroying human life by the pr~~ess of lynching is a disgrace to America, is clear. The only wise and safe 1.:ray to remove a foul blot from the scutcheon of the greatest republic on earth is for Americans, from the most prominent statesman to the meanest citizen, to give practical effect to their professed Christianity.42

According to one newspaper, The Scottis}1_]'ulpit, ". . . The

graphic picture she gave of the persecution and brutal tyranny to Hhich

the colored people of the Southern states are subjected to by the whites, was listened to 1vith rapt attention. Nothing more harrowing has been for years related from a Glasgmv platform than the narrative she gave of the cruelties and outrages perpetrated upon her people."43

One British clergyman wrote that "Nothing since the days of

_!Jncle Tom~s Cabin has taken such a hold in England as the anti-lynching

crusade. " 1~ 4

Bontemps has written that certain opposition elements in the 137

United States ~v-ere so concerned over Hells-Barnett's revelations that they dispatched agents to Englartd to counteract her influence. 45 In addition, Hells-Barnett ,.,rote that at least one editor tried to discredit her. She said:

He [editor of the St. Louis Republican] remarked that he had been to great pains i~--sendi~g-persons through out the South r,,here I had lived in the effort to get something that he could publish against me ... I have never forgotten that conversation, because I was not really aware until then that a great many of the editors of the country had been spending time trying to find something to my discredit. 4 6

There was immediate response from the American press -- particularly the Hemphis papers -- to tvells-Barnett' s anti-lynching crusades in England. Follmving her return from her second crusade in

England, a Litera_!)' Digest editorial stated: "The response to the

British public and press to the appeals of Hiss Ida l3. Hells in behalf of the negro race in the Southern States of the Union has excited con siderable interest in America .•• "47 The Nemphis papers, from the first days of the Free~J?._eech., had been infuriated by Hells-Barnett 1 s disclosures and accusations. Their response was still more pronounced when they saw what the British were publishing about Ida B. Hells-

Barnett and lynchings in Hemphis. The Memphis press, especially the

Hemphis Appeal-Avalanche and the Memphis Commercial Appeal, reprinted reports from the British press and refuted the charges made against

Hemphis. A headline in the Hemphis _ggmmer:_~ial of Hay 26, 1894, read:

"Career of Ida B. Hells -- The Record of This Notorious Negro Courte- san -- A Few Plain Facts, Which 1Hll No Doubt Open the Eyes of the 138

People of England, Where She is 'Lecturing' and Lying About Hemphis.rr48

The Memphis Commerc~~~Appeal accused Wells-Barnett of gross exaggera- tion and in at least one report referred to her as a "negro adventuress." In a dispatch to the Chicago Inte!:-Ocean_ Hells-Barnett wrote:

I see the Hemphis Daily Commercial pays me the compli ment of calling me~'Negro Adventuress" and violently abuses the English people for listening to me. If I am become an adventuress for stating facts when invited to do so, by what name must be characterized those who furnish these facts, and those who give the encouragement of their silence to them • • . If the South ~vould throH as much energy into an effort to secure justice to the Negro as she has expended in preventing him from obtaining it all these years, if the North would spend as much time in an unequivocal and unceasing demand for justice as it has in compromising and condoning ~vrong against the Negro, these problems -.;vould soon be solved. Hill it do so? Eight million of so-called free men and Homen a"tvait the ansv.1er, and England "tvaits Hith them. 49

Hells-Barnett wrote that the Hemphis Commercial article calling her an "adventuress" "brought tvarmer friends and stronger support- ers to the anti-lynching cause than it perhaos \Vould have had other wise.1150

Another Comiil~_!"_c:_ial~r__eal article further attempted to helit- tle Wells-Barnett and any influence that she might have in England. It stated:

It is not surpr1s1ng that Ida Hells failed to get any effective response from the people in her mm country. They were too near the facts and they knew something of the conditions. It was only \vhen she had put an ocean bettveen herself and the facts that she could get a patient audience. As to the force of English public opinion -- bah! The so-called public opinion that is manifesting itself by adopting resolutions endorsing the slanders of this -.;.;oman, receives very little respect 139

in England and none at all in this country. Negroes are novelties in England and therefore interesting • 51

After receiving various Hemphi~_Q_ommercial articles denouncing

\vells-Barnett, the Liverpool Daily Post responded thusly:

••• Happily it is not necessary for us to consider · the element in the Hemphis Commercial's case to which v1e have just referred, [theattaclu;-~;-Hells-Barnett] because whatever that journal might prove against the champion of the colored race "t-JOuld fail altogether to justify the existence of lynch la~.,r ••. The occurrence of lynching is freely admitted by the Nemphis Commercial and is attributed to certain abundant miscl-emea~-ors- of- the black race ••. A civilized community does not need lynch law, and it is perfectly obvious that a country in which lynch law is resorted to, \vi th the approval of public opinion and the concurrence of respectable citi zens, as the Com~_'£cial alleges, is one in ;.,rhich any crimes committed by the black race could be effectually dealt \vi th by legal process of la't..r. 52

There was also response to Hells-Barnett's crusading in England from American newspapers outside of Hemphis. A New York Times editorial stated:

Miss Ida B. Hells, a mulatress tvho has been 'stumping' the British Islands to set forth the brutality of Southern tvhite men and the unchastity and untruthfulness of Southern white -.;vomen, has just returned to these shores. On the same day on which an interviev7 ~..rith her ~·ms report ed it was also reported that a negro had made an assault upon a white ·woman for purposes of lust and plunder, not in Texas or Nississippi, but in the heart of the City of New York. The "t-7retch is probably safe from lynching here, \vhich is to the credit of the civilization of New York. Thus far he seems to have escaped the clutch of the law. But the circumstances of his fiendish crime may serve to convince the mulatress missionary that the promulgation in Nev7 York just nmv of her theory of negro outrages is, to say the least of it, inopportune.53 140

Miss Wells does not represent all the colored p~ople of the Union. It is stated in reliable papers that the better class of negroes in the South acknmvledge that Hiss Hells exaggerates and makes ,.,holesale charges that are not justified by the facts. At a meeting of the Colored School-Teachers' Association of Georgia, a re solution commending :Hiss Fells' Hark \•laS recently reject ed by a large majority, after several representative colored educators had severely denounced Hiss Hells. 54

Another editorial in The Chr~~icle of Augusta, Georgia, intimated that Hells-Barnett \vas only interested in making money. The editorial stated:

. • • the lynching spirit is created among men by the outrages upon women, and like all passions, when it is once aroused in a community, it is likely to run riot. When the negroes no longer furnish what, in the minds of many, is a justification for lynching, then the laVJ abiding spirit of the people tvill easily discontenance lynch-law for lesser crimes. Let the negro reformers preach this doctrine among their mvn people, and let them act upon it, and they \vill stop lynch-1m.; much sooner than by harangues in London and Liverpool, but they \vill not accumulate as much English gold, tvhich is the milk in the cocoanut.55

A Ne\v York Sun writer said that "It seems superfluous to say

\ve regard much or most in the manner of Hiss l\fells' charges as unfor tunate and impertinent."56

In spite of continued attacks on Hells-Barnett by the American press, the fact remains that while in England, ~·1 ells-Barnett easily convinced her audiences of the barbarity of lynch lmv and of the moral obligation of English sentiment. She \vrote that "the facts are received

VJlt. h t h e greatest surpr1se,. h error an d 1n . d. 1gnat1on. . .. s? The London Daily

Chronicle implored England's religious leaders to arouse the moral in-

58 An q • d1gnat. i on o f Ch r1st1ans. . 1n . Am er1ca.• e d.1tor1a . 1 1n . t h e ~stm~n~~er 141

Gazette said: "If a tithe of the ghastly tales she tells are true, it is >vell-nigh incredible that this sympathy should be denied any civi 59 lized human so til upon God's earth, in Arne rica or out of it. "

Throughout her career, Hells-Barnett had several conflicts Hith members of the pulpit. During her trips abroad, especially, Hells-

Barnett had cited the pulpit, along ~vi th the press, as being an incen- tive to lynchers. Indeed, the pulpit was often encouraging to lynchers.

An editorial in Lite~a_ry_ Digest said:

. . . the Right Rev. Htigh Hiller Thompson, has according to Press reports, made a defense of lynch-la>v. He is re ported to have said that lynching parties are composed of the people, "~vho save delay by simply resuming the natural sovereignty delegated by them to the courts, and h~mg the criminals," and that such resumption of natural sovereign ty is rendered necessary by the fact that "the lm·rs are slmv, the jails are full, and the lawyers are banded to gether to defeat justice, as they ah.rays are. or60

In an Inter-Ocean dispatch, ~\1 ells-Barnett criticized the Na- tional Baptist Convention which met in Philadelphia in June, 1892. She said:

An effort was made to have a resolution passed by that convention condemning lynching, as the Hethodist Episcopal Conference had done at Omaha in Hay. The committee on resolutions decided that it could not be done as they had too many southern delegates present and did not wish to offend them.6l

At the Protestant Hinisters' Alliance in Kansas City, Hissouri, in 1895, a debate >vas precipitated >

Barnett and her anti-lynching campaign was introduced. Reverend S. H.

Neel, described as "a Southerner," opposed the resolution \vith such 142

vehemence that it ~vas eventually tabled. 62

In a speech introducing ·Hells·-Barnett to a meeting of the

Universal Negro Improvement Association and African Communities League in 1918, Harie Nadre Harshall described another instance in >vhich a man of the church tried to damage Hells-Barnett's credibility. She said:

. • . You knmv that she ~vent across the ocean and made friends for the Negro; made friends by the millions for us, so much so that ttJhen she returned in t>w years after, a ~vhite Methodist minister in the South had pamphlets printed and sent to Europe sayin~ that the people who >vere over there talking about the treatment of tg~ Negro in the South 1;·7ere liars, that they Here paid • . . ).

Ida B. Hells-Barnett aroused the ire of the press and pulpit, but her most dangerous clashes Here those that she experienced Hith the

United States Government. She ~qas nearly arrested in 1917 for selling buttons protesting to the government the killing of tHelve black soldiers. In addition, the Har Department of the United States vratched her carefully, particularly during and after ~.Jorld t-lar I. In 1918, in a letter to Emmett J. Scott, Special Assistant to the Secretary of 64 Har, John M. Dunn, Actin~ Director of Hilitary Intelligence said:

As it is the apparent intention of Mrs. Ida B. l·!ells Barnett to go abroad to endeavor to act as "lobbyist," or in some >>lay influence action at the Peace Conference,'6 5 it has been suggested that special attention he given to her record before a passport is granted her. The meeting '"hich she is to address in Baltimore at the Regent Theatre Sunday afternoon, December ~~nd, will be covered by a repre sentative from this office.

67 Wells-Barnett was, in fact, denied a passport.

In another letter to the Director of }'fili tary Intellip;ence,

Hajor H. H. Loving, P. C. w·rote: ••• Hrs. Barnett \vent to Baltimore for the purpose of delivering one of her favorite addresses, but was tipped off that it might be recorded and used to pre vent her from securing a passport later. It ~vas an nounced hmvever, that she would "open up" in a speech Sunday afternoon at Regent Theatre, Baltimore. I shall send an operative to take her speech and report any fur ther development • • • In my report on the meeting of the National Race Congress, I recommended that especial attention be given tg~s subject's record before a pass port is granted her.

It is obvious that.the federal government realized the extent of Wells-Barnett's influence. In a memorandum to Lieutenant Colonel

Pakenham, Hrisley Brmm, Major, A. S. H. A. said: " ••• It is reported to this office that Ida B. \!ells-Barnett is considered a far more dangerous agitator than Harcus Garvey. Both of these people are being careful! \vatched. n69

Hells-Barnett's anti-lynching crusades in England elicited response from individual state governments, as well as the federal govern ment. lvells-Barnett had helped form the London Anti-Lynching Committe~?

Hhen this committee wrote to the governor of Alabama protesting the lynching of t1vo Blacks, the office of the governor responded in the follmving manner:

The Governor directs me to say that \vhile he has al1vays been pleased to answer respectful inquiries by citizens or subjects of foreign countries regarding events trans piring here >·lith which they have legitimate concern or responsibility, your letter of the 8th inst. does not come within those limits • • • A formal inquiry addressed by a committee of American citizens to the Queen, her Hinister, or the Governor--General of one of her provinces, asking official assurances of the falsity of alleged instances of cruelty under the eviction laHs in Ireland, the oppression of natives in Egypt or India, or laxity in the administration of justice and the protection of life, property, or morals any1..rhere in the British Empire, 144

especially when no American citizen ~vas involved, and accompanied in advance by harsh strictures upon English civilization if the reported occurrences should prove to be true, would be deemed the vmrk of diseased or ignorant minds and wholly ignored . • . There is to-day no more formidable hindrance to the complete enforcement of our laws, sustained, as they are, by the pm..rer and thought of the vast body of our people, in the class of cases to ~vhich you refer than the attempt of a committee of British sub jects to constitute themselves an international moral tribunal before whom they arrogate the right to summon states to defend their civilization ~;.,rhenever their laws in isolated cases, or class of cases, are not successful in protecting criminals from mob violence or in detecting or punishing those 'tvho thus assail them • . • History teaches us that the civilization of one country is not to be pre ferred to that of another simply because a crime not infre quent in the one seldom occurs in the other . . . 7l

As Hells-Barnett had often observed, the government failed to deny the charges that tHo black men had been lynched. The government's response to the committee was "It's none of your business."

The government's letter in response to the London Anti-Lynching

Committee prompted Hilliam Lloyd Garrison to reply in another letter to the Times. He wrote: ·

. • . It is no unusual thing for the down-trodden people of a nation to appeal for justice to the ~;..rorld' s tribunals. It ~vas, doubtless, impertinent for Lafayette to interfere 't.rith England's treatment of her colonies, but America cherishes his name as sacredly as that of ~1ashington. The debt of the United States to Great Britain for active aid :i.n the American anti-slavery movement cannot be over estimated. George Thompson, denounced as a "foreign emis sary" and ninter-meddler'' by a pro-slavery public senti ment, mobbed and hunted even in New England, is neverthe less embalmed in history with the heroes of the struggle. To shame Austria for the wrongs of Hungary, Kosauth instinc tively submitted his case to the enlightened sentiment of England and America. Hazzini could gain the ear of Italy '"more easily from London than from Rome. Today oppressed Russia, through Kennan and exiled Stepniak, speaks with more force than would be possible in the dominion of the dominion of the Tsar. Armenia seeks redress, not by 145

attempting to change Turkish sentiment, but by British organization promoted by the sympathy of Professor Bryce. And instances can be multiplied.

Miss Ida B. Wells has, therefore, ample precedent. Even if she had not, the value of her English mission is won derfully justified by events. She found deaf ears to her complaints in the United States. Spoken from the vantage ground of London, her faintest whisper goes like an arrmv to its mark. No nation, however despotic or savage, is impervious to the good opinion of the Horld. The very denunciation of foreign criticism by the Southern offenders demonstrates its potency. A year ago the South derided and resented Northern protests; to-day it listens, explains, and apologizes for its uncovered cruelties. Surely a great triumph for a little woman to accomplish! It is the pow·er of truth simply and reservedly spoken, for her J~nguage 1vas inadequate to describe the horrors exposed.

G~rrison also wrote that British sentiment, aroused by Wells-

Barnett's moving lectures and articles, proved beneficial and saving to

Blacks in the South. He discussed the !!dormant and intimidated moral sense of the South!! that began to assert itself once British agitation . 73 against lynching gained momentum.

Another Hriter in the Li~erary___ Dip-c..est of July 28, 1894, told of how several prominent bodies of Hhite citizens Here stimulated by Fells-

Barnett's crusade into organizing anti-lynching leagues and offering to devote their time and money to the suppression of lynching. 7 '+

Hells-Barnett's anti-lynching crusades in England so influenced the city of Hemphis that in Hay, 1893, ~·Then Lee l

In another instance in 1894, when six accused barn burners

were shot while being brought to the Shelby County jail, white business - leaders immediately took steps to condemn the crime publicly. A Shelby

County grand jury promptly indicted thirteen white men for murder, >vent

on record as being appalled by the outrage, and announced their hope for

conviction and the death penalty. David rL Tucker -.;vrote:

• . • although the city never succeeded in convicting the band of lynchers, the practical need to end lynching, and the new philosophy which it forced on the city's leadership seem to have put an end to the crime in the Bluff City for more than t"t·JO decades. For this, Hiss Ida B. Hells deserves the lion's share of the credit; for it was she \vho had held the sins of the city up for the -.;.;hole \vorld to see and thus shamed white Hemphians into doing at ~ast \vhat decency and equality of laH had al>vays demanded. 7

In their effort to repair the damaged reputation of America, newspaper editors at last condemned lynching unequivocally and tried to make their positions retroactive by insisting they had never approved mob law.

One author has vrritten that by the end of the year 1894 "the yearly lynching rate had dropped . . . and largely because of r-Uss HellS voice, rarely Hould America's most barbaric crime again he condoned by

the northern -.;.;hite press. ,Jl

Hells-Barnett's anti-lynching '"ork did not end upon her return

to America from her second trip to England in 1894. Almost single- handedly, she kept alive opposition to this horrible injustice and

finally, black people \vho had thought it expedient to keep quiet spoke out and joined her campaign. There are numerous articles in the black press that demonstrate how Hells-Barnett's ideas -.;vere finally taken up 147

in the twentieth century by black journalists. Some of these articles echo Hells-Barnett's earliest v1ritings. ·For example, one article in

the Hous~Q_t:l__ I_nformer, October 25, 1919, said: "In the past 30 years 50 colored \V'Omen have been lynched. In the pa.st 18 months five colored

't>mmen have been lynched. Here they rapists? If so ~v-ho were their vic- 78 tims? Were they lecherous black brutes?" And from the same article:

If the black man \vere a rapist and brute by nature and instinct, as these ~vhite ne\vspapers, demagogues and mobo crats would have the public believe, \vhy are so many black men E~mployed in \vhite homes as chauffeurs, butlers, yard men, etc. Hhy are white Homen and children committed unto their care and keeping ivith such abandon by white men? 79

Wells-Barnett had repeatedly asked these very questions as _____ / early as 1892. She pointed out that black \Wmen wen: frequently lynched and that dtn·,l.ng the Civil Har when the wh:i_t~::: man -vms off fighting, black men were oft.en left to care for white \..romen and d1ildren and no charge of rape was heard ..

As \vells-Ban

The _Q~!J"e?tOll_.lli':'" _I_dea later asked in 1919: "T\'hite men make the law, white men execute the law, white men keep all the jails, then w'hy should there ever be any need of lynching a Negro if guilty of any sort of

American '"hite men, governors, senators, representatives, judges, statesmen and political leaders an~ braying 11ke thirsty jack-asses, frothing at the mouth and railing upon Mexico for her reported atrocities against American cit:f.zens, and '"anting this government to order an intervention to stop Hhat these Hhite American proselytes of rebel democracy call 'savagery.' But, can white America successfully do this, \-7ithout first 'clearing her own conscience?' We can't bring ourselves to believe that the soil of Russia, China, or 1:,1e.xico, has ever been marked w·ith such barbarous crimes as these perpetrated in old §~fll-charged heathen Georgia and half-civilized America.< .t

\-Jells-Barnett, in lectures and e.rticles, often told of hmv

Americans \•7ere quick to condemn injustices and barbarities in other

countries while failing to correct evils at home.

In spite of many obstacles and little support, Wells-Barnett

~vas able to open the eyes of the United States and Great Britain to the

evils of lynching. The effects of her crusades were far-reaching. A

letter of support to Wells-Barnett, signed by sixty prominent citizens

, ____ / of Santa Cruz, California, was printed in the Evening_ R~~ord, a black

paper in Santa Cruz. The letter read:

\.Je~ the undersigned citizens of Santa Cruz, having our attention ealled to your mission in England, and to the terrible crueltie.s resulting from the prevalence of lynch law in many our States, which falls both upon black and white, and \vhich is a shame and a disgrace to our religion and our civilization, hereby invite you on your return from England to lay your case before the citizens of Santa Cruz. In favor of the enforcement of just and impartial l.aw·s for all, without regard to color or creed, we are, yours sincerely.82

Wells-Barnett broke ne~r ground in the field of journalism,

particularly black journalism in the South. For two years she defied

the umvritten lmv that black journalists in the South had to be less

belligerent, less demanding and less militant. Her approach ~ms hard-

hitting and she employed sensationalizing as \•Tell as crusading tech-

niques to get her message across. Her papers covered local as well as

national issues and her articles Here simple, well-written, informative I '

and relevant.

Hclls-·Barnett \-laS a muckraker before Theodore Roosevelt labelled those Hriters \vho invgriably exposed the muck in any given situation. Not even the smallest injust:tce escaped her notice and her .outrage. She was concerned with the elevation of all oppressed peoples as she., throughout her life, 1:vorked for women's rights, stressed the importance of education and the ballot and pointed out the inconsis- tencies inherent in capitalism.

Hhile Hells-Barnett left m"'ny lessons for others in her re-- markable life, there is one lesson which is particularly applicable today. It has been illustrated that one of her primary concerns was the American government's preoccupation 1:-r:lth lHJman rights in other countries 1:vhile it failed to correct its glaring evils at home. Today, --~- the American government i.s still overly concern<~.d 'vith the human rights of people in other countries \vhile the daily ne\vs is filled with examples of domesti.c economic and racial injustices.

Ida B. Hells-Barnett 'tvould have been quick to respond to the irony. 150

NOTES FOR CHAPTER VI

1 David H. Tucker, "Hiss Ida B. Hells and Hemphis Lynching" Phylon 32 (Summer 1971), p. 112. 2 Alfreda Duster, Crusade for Justice (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1970), p. 37.

3Leslie H. Fishel, Jr. and Benjamin Quarles, The Black Ameri can (Ne

10stephen R. Fox, The Guardian of Boston: William Monroe Trot- ter (New York: Kingsport Press,- Inc.---:-197D,-p---:41. ______11 Redding, p. 204.

12rda B. Hells-Barnett, "Booker T. Hashington and His Critics" World Today 6 (April 1904), p. 518. 13 Robert Kerlin, The Voi<:_e ofth~ N~ro, 1919 (New York: Arno Press, 1968, pp. 78-79. 14 Ida B. \.Jells, "Southern Horrors," reprinted in On Ly!l_<::_hil1_g__~ (New York: Arno Press, 1969), p. 14. 15 Albert Kreiling, "The Rise of the Black Press in Chicago" Journalism History. 16 Honroe A. Najors, Noted Negro Homen: Their Triumphs and Activities (Freeport, Ne

Additional material on the Columbian Exposition can be found in Arna Bontemps and Jack Conroy, They Seek a City (Garden City, Ne,.;r York: Doubleday, Doran arid Company, 1945)~-p~; Leslie H. Fishel and Benjamin Quarles, The Blacl,< American (New York: Hilliam Horrm.;r and Company, Inc., 1970, p. 312; and The New _York Age, Hay 23, 1891.

17Hilliam E. B. DuBois (1868-1963), an historian, journalist and educator, was one of the founders of the NAACP. 18 Duster, pp. 324-326.

19Hary ~,Thite Ovington, The T.~1 alls Came Tumbling Dmm (New York: Harcourt, Brace and Company, 194 7);-r,-. lO~Also see,·charles Flint Kellogg, NAACP: A His to_!.Y of the Nat_!on_9-l Assoc:_iation. for the_ Advancement of Colored People, 1909-1920 (Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins Press, 1967), p. 92.. ------

2017.... e 11. ogg, p •..92

2 lsee Crisis 38, June 1931, p. 207.

22Philip S. Foner, The Voice of Black AI'1erica (NeH York: Simon and Schuster, 1972), p. 69.

23see Crisis 1, November 1910, p. 14. Charles Kerit Kellogr, also made note of Crisis I failure to give Hells-Barnett credit for managing the Steve Green case. See Kellogg, p. 63.

24Allan H. Spear, ~lac:!< Chicago: The ~·faking of a Negro GhettC?_, .l_890-1920_ (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1967), p •. 59. 25 see the contrast in Hells-Barnett's and Douglass' ;,vriting in The Reason Hl~y the -~olore_<:!_~erican is Not in the l~orld '_s Columbian Exposition (Chicago: Ida B. Hells, 1893).

2 fiThe Jim Crmv Car, 11 Ne\v York Age, August 8, 1891.

27chicago Defender, January 1, 1910, p. 7.

28nuster, p. 111.

29Irvine Garland Penn, The Afro-American Press and Its Editors (Ne\iT York: Arno Press and the New York Times, 1969), p. 408.

30!'lary Magdelene Boone Hutton, "The Rhetoric of Ida B. Hells," Ph.D. dissertation, Indiana University, 1975, p. 37.

31Habel M. Smythe, The Black American Reference Book (Engle ,.;rood Cliffs: Prentice-Hall, Inc., 1976), p. 849~----·----- 152

32 Gunnar Hyrdal, An American Dilemma (Ne\v York: HcGrmv-Hill Book Company, 1964), p. 9io:------

33navid M. Tucker, p. 112. 34 rrvine Garland Penn, p. 407.

35 Arna Bon temps, AnyT?J:ace l?_~!=_ _!:lere (NeH York: Hill and r,ram~, 1966), p. 98. 36 Gerda Lerner, ed., Blac_!<._!·~

37"English Feelings Upon America's Lynchings," L~te_Iary Digest 9 (July 14, 1894), p. 308. 38 rbid.

39Nellie F. Nos sell, The Fork of the Afro--Arnerican Foman (Philadelphia: George S. Ferguson--Co~·-;-i9o8)',p·.--4-5-:------

40 Bon temps, Anyp_l_~.c=_~_B_~~.Y~re, p. 100.

41London Sun reprinted in Hemphis App_~-~1-i\__ya~an_~h~, 12 June 1894, as cited in David M. Tucker, p. 120.

4 2!\berc!_e_~Ev~EJ-.E_g__Gazette, 28 June 1893, as cited in Pauline F. Hopkins, nFamous Homen of the Negro Race: Literary Harkers," Color~A~erican)1ag~zine (1901-1902), p. 280.

4 3_The2_c::g_tt:_~_~h Pu!_rJit, as cited in Pauline Hopkins, p. 280.

44non temps, Anyp_la~ __B_u,~ __ !!_e_~e, p. 100.

45rbid.

46Duster, pp. 234-235.

47"How Niss \~1 ells' Crusade is Regarded in America'' _!-ite_rar_y_ Digest 9 (July 28, 1894), pp. 366-367.

48HemJJh~~-_fom~cial_!.l.p_pea~, 26 Harch 1894.

49chicago Int:_~r-0~, 28 Hay 1894, p. 6.

50Duster, p. 183.

51 Lit~.r~~y_pig_est:_, 28 July 1894,pp. 366-367.

52 Th~L_:!ve!_p_o.s?l__Da:iJ:_y__ Ps>st, 13 June 1894, as cited in Duster, p. 184. 153

53New York Times, 27 July 1894, p. 4.

54Litera~~est, 28 July 1894, pp. 366-367.

55Ibid.

56"An Anti-Lynching Crusade in America Begun" Lite!_

58 Tucker, p. 120.

59westminster Gazette reprinted in Hemphis ~-e~_l-Avala~c:_l_le, 12 June 1894, as cited in Tucker, p. 120.

60Literary Digest, 28 July 1894, pp. 366-367. 61 Chicago Inter~O~ean, 19 May 1894, p. 16. 62 Bontemps, Any~~ac~ Bu~Here, p. 101. 63 Transcript of Meeting of the Baltimore Branch of the Uni- versal Negro Improvement Association of the African Communities League," Bethel A. M. E. Church, Baltimore, Maryland, December 18, 1918, RG 165, Records of the War Department, General and Special Staffs.

64Emmett J. Scott was also secretary-treasurer of Howard Uni versity at one time and he served as Booker T. Washington's personal secretary. One author described him as "one of the most conservative Negro leaders in the country." (See Kerlin, Voice_of___ the _Negro, p. 76).

65wells-Barnett had been chosen by the Universal Negro Improve ment Association and the African Communities League of America and of the West Indies to represent them at Versailles at the Peace Conference.

66John M. Dunn to Emmett J. Scott, December 21, 1918, RG 165, Records of the l.Jar Department, General and Special Staffs.

67 See Duster, p. 380. Also see, Stephen R. Fox, The Guardian of Boston (New York: Kingsport Press, Inc., 1971), p. 224.------68Major W. H. Loving, P. C. to Director of Military Intelli gence, December 20, 1918, RG 165, Records of the War Department, General and Special Staffs.

69wrisley Brown, Major, A.S.M.A. to Lieutenant Colonel Paken ham, December 21, 1918, RG 165, Records of the War Department, General and Special Staffs. 154

70 Also, as a result of Fells-Barnett's ~..rork, sixteen branches of the Society for the Recognition of the Brotherhood of }Jan were or ganized in Britain.

71 1 11 ' Lynching in America Th~__ 'I'j:.!!les, 6 October 1894, p. 7.

72The_J.imes, 9 November 1894, p. 15. 73 Ibid.

74 Lit~r~y_T?_=!:_g_es...!:_, 28 July 189lf, pp. 366-36 7.

7 5Hemphis Daily_J::_onme:t;_cial, 2 3 July 189 3. 76 Tucker, p. 122. 77 L ut h er p_ . J ac,,son,1• "'I'h, e P opu1 ar J..r.. e d'1a. · P ar t 1 , Th_ e ""f', ;1.ss1on • o_f Black Ne1..rs~en, n in Habel N. Smythe, The__ Bl

82 The~'llel1ing_~~-cord, as cited in Literary Digest 28 July 1894, p. 367. 155

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Books by Ida B. ~.Jells-J?arne tt

Duster, Alfreda, ed. Crusade for Just~c~: Tl:_~~u_!:_9biog_raph_y__~t-~da B. Hells. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1970.

{-Jells, Ida B. "Southern Horrors," "A Red Record, 11 and ":Hob Rule in New Orleans," reprinted in On Lynchings. Ne~v York: Arno Press, 1969.

Hells, Ida B. The Reason \\Thy the Colored American is Not in the Worl~ Columb~C!-n E::~:e_os~tion. a;-:i..ca-go:--IdaB~~iells-;T893.

Articles by_!~3 B~ Well~-Barnett

"Booker T. Washington and His Critics" \vorld Today 6 (April 1904) :518.

"How Enfranchisement Stops Lynching" Original_Ri?Lhts _Hagazine 1 (June 1910): 42-53.

"Ida B. Hells Abroad" Chi~_~go Inter-Ocean: 2 April 1894, p. 12. 9 April 1894, p. 8. 23 April 1.894, p. 10. 19 Hay 1894, p. 16. 28 May 1894, p. 6. 25 June 1894, p. 10. 7 July 1.894, p. 13.

"lola's Southern Field" New York Age, 19 November 1892.

"Lynching and the Excuse for It" The Independent 53 (Hay 16, 1901): 1133-1136.

"Lynch Law in All Its Phases 11 Our Day 9 (Hay 1893): 333-347.

"Lynch Law in America" Arena 23 (January 1900): 15.

"Our Country's Lynching Record" Survey 29 (February 1, 1913): 573-574.

"The Jim Crmv Car -- A \\Toman's Opinion of the Infamous Thing" Ne'v-~ork Age, 8 August 1891. 1.56

"The Negro's Case in Equity," The Inde-pendent 52 (April 26, 1900): 1010-1011.

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Adburgham, Alison. ~\Tomen in Print_;_~riti..E_g tJomen an~ H

Adler, Hortimer J., Van Doren, Charles and Ducas, George, eds. The Negro in American History: A Taste of Freedom, 1854-1927. New York: Encyclopaedia Britannica Educational Corporation, 1969.

Aptheker, Herbert. A Doc:;umentary History of the Negro P~()yl_~_!_I!__ the Uhited States. New York: The Citadel Press, 1951.

Arne Press and the New York Times. Negro Protest Pamphlets. Ne,.;r York: Arno Press and the Ne>v York Times--;-1969:------

Proceedings of the National Neg_ro Conf~e~ce L~()2._~ Ne•v York: Arno Press and the Ne\.;r York Times, 1969.

Baydo, Gerald. A Topical Hist_ory __ E_t_~he_United States. Engle,·lOod Cliffs, New Jersey, 1974.

Bell, Howard Holman, ed. Hinutes of the Proceedings o~_the N_~tional Negro Conventions, 1830-1864. Ne;,.;r York: Arne Press and the New York Times, 1969.

Benjamin Jules R. A Student's Guide to History. New York: St. Martin's Press, 1975.

Bentley, George R. A Historv of the Freedmen's Bureau. Ne'v York: Octagon Books, 1970.

Bergman, Peter H. The Chr_

Bleyer, Hillard Grosvenor. Main Currents in t1u:~__ _Bis tory~ American Journalism. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1927.

Bon temps, Arna. 100 Years. of Negro_ Freedom. New York: Dodd, Head Publishing Co., 1961.

Bouh.,rare, Narcus, H. The Oratory of Negro Leaders: 1900-1968. West port, Conn. : Negro Universities- Pres-B;-1969. 157

I •

Bracey, John H. Jr., Heier, August and Rud~vick, Elliott. The Afro Americans: S.elected Documents. Boston: Allyn and Bacon, Inc., 1972.

Brawley, Benjamin. Neg~o Builders an~. Chapel Hill, North Carolina: The University of North Carolina Press, 1937.

Brooks, Maxwell R. The Negro Press Re-~xamiEed. Boston: Christopher Publishing House, 1959.

Brooks, Philip C. Res~arch in Archives: The Use of Unpublished~~imary Sources. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1969.

Brown, Hallie Q. Homespun Heroine~ and_ Oth_E_:!r 'Homen of Distinction. Freeport, New York: Books for Libraries Press, 1926.

Carruth, Gorton and Associates, eds. The ,_Encyc!opedia of American Facts and Dates, 5th edition, New York: Thomas ·y, Crowell Co., 1970.

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-----• The Social Fabric: American Life from the Civil v!ar to the Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1975.

Chambers, Bradford. Chronicles of Negro Protest. Ne~_.- York: Parents' Hagazine Press, 1968.

Cole, Donald B. Handbook ~f--~merican History. New York: Harcourt Brace and Horld, Inc. , 1968.

Cronen, E. David. Black Hoses: The Story of Harcus Garvey and the Universal Negr~ -Impr~vell_!~nt Association.. Madison, l\fisconsin: University of Wisconsin Press, 1955.

Crowe, Charles, ed. The Ag~ of Civil Har and Reconstruction, 1830- 1900. Chicago: The Dorsey Press, 1966.

Cruse, Harold. The_ Crisis _<2i_~he_.B_eg:r:-o Intellectual. New· York: Morrow, 1968.

Culp, D. l.J., ed. ~ventie!=h ~~_ntury N~_g_ro Li~er~ure. Atlanta: J. L. Nichols and Company, 1902.

Cutler, James Elbert. Lynch LaH: An Investigation into the History of Lynching_i_~_th~_ Un~~ed S~ates~-~Jev7York: -LongmanS: Green and Company, 1905. 158 (

Dannett, Sylvia. Profiles !.!l__ E_~g_ro _lV'()manh_C?od_?_-!_619-:-1900. Chicago: Educational Heritage, Inc., 1964.

Davenport, Halter and Derieux, James C. Lad]:_esL_9entlemen___?~_Jdi~_()rs. Garden City, NeH York: Doubleday and Company, Inc. ,1960.

Detweiler, Frederick G. The Neg_r_o_ _J:'re~§l_!p_!:he Unite_d States. Chicago: McGrath Publishing Company, 1922.

Drewry, Henry N. and Dre~vry, Cecelia H. Afro American History: Past to Present. New York: Charles Scribner'SSon;:--1971-.------·--·---

Drimmer, Nelvin, ed. Black History: A Real)praisal. Garden City, Ne\<7 York: Doubleday and Company, 1968.

Duster, Alfreda, ed. Crusade for Justice: Ida B. Wells-Barnett. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1970.

Emery, Edwin. The Press and America. Engle\vood Cliffs: Prentice-Hall, Inc. , 1972.

Finkle, Lee.. Foru~ fo~P-r:_~test. Cranbury, Ne\v Jersey: Associated University Presses, Inc., 1975.

Fishel, Leslie H. Jr. and Quarles, Benjamin. The Bla_q:::..__~~r!_can. Ne,., York: Hilliam Morrow and Company, Inc., 1970.

Fling, Fred Harrow. The Hriting of History~ __An Introd_uction ~-JUs torical Hethod. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1920.

Outline of Historical Hethod. New York: Burt Franklin, 1971.

Foner, Philip S. The Voice of Black America. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1972.

Ford, Edwin H. and Emery, EdHin. High~igh_ts if!. __the Hist()rY_ of the American Press.

Foster, William Z. The Negro People in American History. New York: International Publishers Co., Inc., 1954.

Fox, Stephen R. The Guardian of Boston. New York: Kingsport Press, Inc., 1971.

Franklin, John Hope. FromSlavery to Freedom. Ne\v York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1965. 159

Frazier, E. Franklin. The Negro_!_~_the __!:!._~- t~c!___States. New York: The Macmillan Company, 1957.

Frazier, Thomas Richard. Afro-Amer~c~~-.J-~~-~t:_ory:__Plj.!11_<-!_l:'.Y_ S9_t1rces. Ne~;v York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, Inc., 1971.

Garrett, Romeo B. Famous _!_i_~_!:..!?c!:_s Alwu_~_NegJ::"_oes. New York: Arno Press. 1972.

Gilbert, Peter. Joh~d,vard ~!-"uce. Ne\v York: Arno Press and the Ne\v York Times, 1971.

Gosnell, Harold F. Negro Po!it:_~cians_:_ _]Jl~IUs_e_~f_Ne8_!:'o Politic:.::s in Chicago. Chicago: University Press, 1935.

Grant, Joanne. Black Protest. Ne,., York: St. Martin's Press, 1968.

Hedgeman, Anna Arnold. Th_e_'!:_rump_l?_!:_~?ounc!.~:__~_!~emo~!-"-~~-~l_E?_gc!"_C?___r.._t::_~der ship. New York: Holt, Rinehart and ~.Jinston, Inc., 1964.

Hughes, Langston. Famous N~o Herot::_13 in_~~-r-~~a. New York: Dodd, Mead and Company, 1958.

Hutchins, Fred L. ~Vhat Hap~ned·i~_lfemp~is. Kingsport, Tennessee: Kingsport Press, 1965.

Johnson, Charles S. The Neg_~!_n_ _!l.merican_ _f_:!:_~ili~

Katz, \Villiam Loren, ed. The_~_glo-A~r~c~n!.[?g~~-~ne. Ne\v York: Arno Press, Inc~, 1968.

~t::_~tness. New York: Putnam and Sons, 1967.

Kellogg, Charles Flint. NAJI..CP: A History of the National As~oci_a_tio~ for the Advancement of Color;d-People;-1909-i9ZO. Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins Press--:-196~---·------

Kerlin, Robert. The __yoice. of -~_!!._e Ne.gro,_1919. Ne\v York: Arno Press, 1968.

Kobre, Sidney. Developmen~_ of J\meric~Il._:!ournalism. Dubuque, Iowa: Wm. C. Brown Company Publishers, 1969.

LaBrie, Henry G. Perspectives of theBlack Press:_l974. Kennebunkport, Maine: Nercer House-Pre-~-~: l9T4.- ·----·-·-·--·------

Lee, James Melvin. Histo~y--~~~~-~ican J~~rn~~ism. Garden City, New York: The Garden City Publishing Co., Inc., 1923. 160

Lerner, Gerda, ed. Black ~.Jomen in Hhite America. Ne~.;r York: Random House, 1972.

Logan, Rayford H. The. Neg_ro i~---~I!ler:_ica~_.J..if.~_ an_d_._Th~':!.8E_t_: The Nadir, 1877-1901. Ne1v York: Dial, 1954.

Najors, Monroe A. Noted__ N~_ro_Hom~n~ __':D1ei_!:.._'f_r_~~m~_? __ a!.l_c!._~ctivities. Freeport, New York: Books for Libraries Press, 1971.

Heier, August and Rud1vick, Elliott P. _!"_!OIEe_!']a~J;._?.!=J_~~~()~_q_b_etto: An Int:._erpr~~ive _l:!_i~tory .E.f_p.merican Negroes. Ne\v York: Hill and Hang, 1966.

Heier, August. Negro Thought ~n Amer_:!:_ca: 1880-1915. Ann Arbor: The University of Hichigan Press, 1963.

Meltzer, Milton. In T~eir Ov~!I~:t:.~~ :_~._l:!_!:_s_t;_()_!'_Y._()_f_._!:h_~--·-~erican Negro, 1619-1865. NeH York: Thomas Y. Crm.;rell Company, 1964.

In Tb_~ir ()\vn Herds~ A His tory__ ot_t~~mer_!:_ca!!._ N~_fL_o_)_ 1865- 1916. Netv York: Thomas Y. Crm·Jell Company, 1965.

In Their lfivn Herds: A History of the American Negro, 1916- 1966. New York: Thomas Y. Crowell Company, 1967.

Miller, Ruth, ed. Ba£_kgr~unds to_ Black Ame!"J.c;:t_n Literature. Scran ton: Chandler Publishing Company, 1971.

Hassell, Nellie F. The Hark of the Afr()-American_}•Joman. Philadelphia: George S. Ferguson Co., 1908.

Matt, Frank Luther. Amer~c?n Jou:t:_nal~~~L~_Histo_ry~6.9Q.:-1960. 3d ed., New York: TI1e Macmillan Company, 1962.

Myrdal, Gunnar. An American Dilemma~ Ne1v York: HcGrat:.;r-Hill Book Com pany, 1964.

National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. Thirty Years ~L0:nching_ _:!.p_!:_he_Unitei_~ta!=_es ,__ 188_9-~918. Ne>v York: NAACP, 1919.

Oak, Vishnu V. The~~ro New~paper. Yellow Springs: Negro Universi tie~ Press, 1948.

Ottley, Roi. The Lonely l.J?rrior: The Life and Tim~~ of -~ohert S. Abbott. Chicago: H. Regenry Co., 1955.

Ovington, Nary White. The tfalls Came Tumbling Dmm. Ne1v York: Har· court, Brace and Company, Inc., 1947. 161

Penn, Irvine Garland. The Afro-American Press and Its Editors. New· York: Arno Press a"ud the Ne'" York Times, 1969.-···---·-- --

Ploski, Harry A., ed. Reference Libral:"Y ___of. p_J,_a_c,_~_A._~~-J:'ica. New York: Belh..rether Publishing Co., Inc., 1971.

Quint, HoHard H. and Cantor, Hilton. Men, Homen and Issues in American H~s tory. vol. 2. Home\vOOd' Illinois: The Dors-ey- P-re-~-:--1975. ·--

Redding, Saunders. Lone~ome Road: The Story of the_ N~g_l:"_~_:i,p_ America. New· York, 1958.

They_q_?me _:!:_~-C~ain~. Philadelphia: J. B. Lippincott, 1969.

Robinson, Hilhemina S. Historical Negro Biog_~C!J:hi_e_~· New York: Pub lishers Co., Inc., 1967.

Romero, Patricia H. In Bla_0<__Am~ri_ca. NeH York: United Publishing Corporation, 1969.

Ross, Ishbel. Ladi~~

Roucek, Joseph S. and Kiernan, Thomas, eds. The_Negi_o_l_lnp_9:c:_t._

Scheiber, Jane L. and Elliott, Robert C., eds. In Search of the Ameri can Dream. Ne\v York: Publisher's Inc., 19i4:-- ·------

Schlesinger, Arthur H. The_APl~ric~~~E>_..''leJ:_o_~· Cambridge, Hassachu setts: Harvard University Press, 1950.

Shafer, Robert Jones. A Gu!d<:_!_

Sloan, Irving J., ed. Blacks in Ame_l:"_~C:.Cl..L.-~•}_2_:1_979: A_c_:_!l..!:_

Spear, Allan H. Blac_:.k_Chicago :_ __Th~~~aking 2_f._a__ Neg_!:_o __ Q.:_~et to_.__l_89Q.-:-1~:__~· Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1967.

Tebbe1, John. The Coll2E._C!_~~Hist~ry_ _

Thompson, Edgar T., ed. Rae,~ Re1at_~ons_and __ !he_ P~C!<:_t:__Pr<_J_!J_J,_em. Durham, North Carolina: Duke University Press, 1939.

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Toppin, Edgar A. Biographis:._~~_l:Iist()r~Bl~cks if1__ i\m~ri<:_~ Sin_s_~_)_?28. New York: NcKay Publishers, 1971.

Unden10od ~ Agness. Newspap_~r:-;oman. New York: Harper and Brother Publishers, 1949.

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lvo1seley, Roland E. The_B~ac~.R..~~~ •. -u. ~~~Ames: Im·m State Univer sity, 1971.

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Woodson, Carter G., et al. The NegEo..J.n_Our H~~t.<~EY· Hashington, D.C.:

Work, Monroe N., ed. Neg~.£_.1_ea~Book,_l2__!8-1919: ft...p_.Annu§t.}.__Ency_c:_~o_pe dia of the Negro. Tuskegee: The Negro Year Book Publishing Com pany, 1919~----- 163

Articles

"Career of Ida B. ~\fells -- The Record of This Notorious Negro Courte san -- A Fe\v Plain Facts, Hhich Hill No Doubt Open the Eyes of the People of England, Hhere She is 'Lecturing' and Lying About Hem phis," Heml?l!_is Comme_r_sj.al, 26 }fay 1894.

Cary, Hary. ' 1Letter to the Editor." Nor~h__?tar, 23 f.farch 1849.

Cr~sis, 1 November 1910, p. 14.

Dunnigan, Alice E. "Early History of Negro Homen in Journalism~' ~Tegro His~~ry ___!)_'!l_:IJ-etin 28 (Nay 1965), pp. 178-179, 193, 197.

Editor and Publisher: Briscoe, ·-Sherman.--·"Black Press to Celebrate 150 th Anniversary; Began As Protest Against Slavery and Racism." Ed~t_t?_l:"___ ~~~--!'__t::b_Jjs~~~ 110 (Harch 12, 1977), pp. 17, 20.

Stone, Chuck. "Black Press: Democracy's Stepchild or A Successful Exercise in Ethnic Pride? 11 ~di~or _?A..c!. Pu~lis_l:1er 110 (Narch 12, 1977), pp. 18-19.

Vaters, Enoch P. "About Recapturing a Fading Hiss ion." Ed~_!:O):" ___and Publisher 110 (Harch 12, 1977), p. 20.

Woods, Howard B. "Oldtime Editors Set Stage For Today's Black Hedia. 11 Editor and Pub lisher 110 (Harch 12, 19 77) , p. 17.

Garrison, l.Jilliam Lloyd. "The Anti-Lynching Committee." Lon_:ti__t?_~__!_imes, 9 November 1894, p. 12.

Henry, Susan. "Colonial hToman Printer As Prototype: To'l>rard A Hodel for the Study of Ninorities." Jo~~~nalis_m History 3 (Spring 1976), pp. 20-24.

Hopkins,Pauline F. "Famous Homen of the Negro Race: Literary Harkers." Co~~~~-A~£!~a~_Magazine (1901-1902), pp. 279-280; 366-371.

Hull, Gloria T. "Alice Dunbar-Nelson: De1mvare 1--lri ter and Homan of Affairs." Delaware HistC>_!X. 17 (Fall-Hinter 1976), pp. 87-103.

Hutton, Frankie P. "Historians Still Ignore Black Press.'' Journalism Educ~tor 28 (April, 1973), p. 48.

"Ida B. Hells 1 Crusade Against Lynching." Pub_!_i..:_~ ___Qp_i_~!_cm 17 (August 9, 1894), p. 439.

Jemand, Amanda Smith. "A Southern Homanrs Appeal for Justice." The lndep~ndent 52 (February 21, 1901), pp. 438-439. 164

Johnson, Clifton II. "Nary Ann Shadd, Crusader for the Freedom of Han." Crisis_78 (April-Hay, 1971), pp. 89-90.

LaBrie, Henry G. nHear Ye! Hear Ye! Black Press!" Vic-Com, Inc. (March 1972).

Lerner, Gerda. 11 Ne>v Approaches to the Study of Homen in American History." Jour_!la~_oJL So~~_?l Itt~-~Ery 3 (Fall 1969), p. 54.

Literary DiE~st: "The Anti-Lynching Crusade." Lite~~_y___l?_:!:gest 9 (September 8, 1894), pp. 544-545.

11 An Anti-Lynching Crusade in America Begun. 11 Lit~r_ary}~.. :i:f~st 9 (August 11, 1894), pp. 421-422.

"English Feelings Upon America's Lynchings." Li t~'_t:'_ar_y_ __Qip._es ~ 9 (July 14, 1894), p. 308.

"Hmv :1-'liss Hells' Crusade is Regarded in America. " Li t_er~_~_y___J)_:!:_ges t 9 (July 28, 1894), pp. 366-3_67.

"Southern Governors on English Critics .• " Li~er~.!_y_l?_:ijsest 9 (September 22, 1894), pp. 1-2.

"Lynching in America." Londcm_l2.~, 6 October 1894, p. 7.

Narzolf, Harion. l!The Homan Journalist: Colonial Printer to City Desk." Journali~m History 1 (Hinter 1974-1975), pp. 103-104.

New York Age: ilj\:fro-A.-;er:ican Woman." i!._eH Yo_lj<_ Age, 25 April 1891.

11 Brooklyn Literary Union -- Nrs. Harper Discusses Enlightened Notherhood on ~·!omen's Night. 11 Ne'v Y()!_l::__ Age, 9 November 189 2.

11 The Church Revie•v- for July. 11 Ne•~Y._ork__ Age, 8 August 1891.

"The Lynchers ivince." Ne'v- York Age, 19 September 1891.

"The Han of Sorrmv-s." Ne\v York Age, 13 June 1891.

"Newspapers in New York." New YorJ~g~.

"Novel Reading Defended." New Yoi_L!g~, 23 May 1891.

"Senator Bruce." Ne'v- Y_o__!"k__Age, 12 September 1891.

"Senator Bruce and the Race. 11 NeH '!.. 2Ek __~_ge, 8 August 1891. 165

"The Horld 1 s Fair Business." The..J-1ew_yor~_N;e, 4 April 1891.

New York Times, 27 July 1894, p. 4.

"Obituary: Ida B. ~.Jells." Crisis 38 (June 1931), p. 207.

Pride, Armistead Scott. "Negro Ne1:.rspapers: Yesterday, Today and To 11 morrm.r. Jom;nalis!!l__ _Qu~rtel:"lY 28 (Spring 1951), p. 179.

Se1:..;rell, George. "Ida B. Hells." BlacL~~:;Lleg!_~!!_· (Hay/June 1976), pp. 20-22.

Smith, Barbara. "Doing Research on Black American ~\fomen." Homen's Studies Newsletter 4 (Spring 1976), pp. 4-5.

Tate, Inez D. "Ida B. Hells-Barnett." Negro Hi_~:t:._ory _13_0_l~tin 5 (Hay 1942), pp. 179, 182-183.

Terrell, Hary Church. "Lynching From a Negro's Point of Vie\·7." North Amerjc~n Re~ie~ 178 (June 1904), pp. 853-868.

Thornbrough, Emma Lou. "American Negro Ne1:.rspapers, 1880-1914. 11 _!3us~_E.ess lli~tory Reyiew 1+0 UJinter 1966), pp. 467-490.

Tucker, David N. "Hiss Ida B. Hells and Nemphis -Lynching. 11 Phy_lon 32 (Summer 1971), pp. 112-122.

1 1 Hilliams, Fannie B. "A Northern Negro s Autobiography. ' T~e___ J;.t:~_depend~nt 57 (July 14, 1904), p. 96.

Wolseley, Roland E. 11 Ida B. Hells-Barnett: Princess of the Black Press'.' Encore 5 (April 5, 1976), p. 2.

Wolseley, Roland E. nlda B. Hells-Barnett: Princess of the Black Press.!! Reac~out (September 7, 1975), pp. 4-6.

11 l\fomen in High School History Textbooks." Homen's ~-~udi~_ _:"~ews_l_~tter 3 (Summer/Fall 1975).

Theses and Dissertations

Brumagin, Vicki Lee. "A Study of Homen in American Journalism From 1696 to 1972." l'laster's thesis, California State University, Northridge, 1972.

Bullock, Penelope Laconia. The J:!.~X::..~9- Perjo~ica!__ Pr:_~~J:.~_!J.e_ U~-~ ted States. Ph.D. dissertation, Unversity of Michigan, 1971. 166

Hutton, Hary Hagdelene Boone. "The Rhetoric of Ida B. Hells: The Genesis of the Anti-Lynch Hovement." Ph.D. dissertation, Indiana Unversity, 1975.

Bibliographic Guide to Black Studi_~:__ ]-975 (Boston: G. K. }{all and Co., 1976).

The Chicago_ Af!"_C?_:::-_~~eric~Il_ __UE_::!:_on -~n_aly_t:_ic _g_~~al~g_:_ __~~-l~c!~X.. to Haterials on the Afro-American in the Principal Libraries of Chicago, vol. y-;-(BostoU: G. K~-J.1afl"and- c;mpany--;--En2Y.------

A Collection of Black Studies Haterial Hicrofilmed from the Arthur A. ------·--·-·--··-~------·------~~~---Schomburg Collection.

Davis, John Prestm. The American Negro Referen~e Book (EngleHood Cliffs, Nm·J Jersey: Pre;-t:-i~e-naif~T~e:·-~-i966).

Davis, Lemvood G. The Black \·loman in American Society (Boston: G. K. Hall and Company, l97.Sy-:·------pictic_:mary Catalog of _th~--~rthu!:"__B. __ ~ill.garn Collection of Negroes. val. 1 (Washington, D. C.: G.K. Hall and Co., 1970).

Dictionary_<;:ataJ.E_g_of the__ Je~~~-~~-~fo~rl~~c!__ C_n_..E._f___lJ~JQ'_O_ Life and History. Howal;'d University Library, Hashington, D.C., val. 1 (Boston: G.K. Hall and Company, 1970).

Diction?ry___ga~~~O&_

Howe, Hentor A. and Lewis, Roscoe E • .A_Cl_f. __ ~he Negro Collection in the Collis P. Huntington Library. 1lampton Institute :-1940~------·------·------

Ploski, Harry A. The:_Negro ~_lmanac. 2d ed. (Ne~v York: Bellwether Co., 1971).

Smith, Dwight L. Afro-American His~o!7_: A __~il?l_~ography (New York: ABCCLIO, Inc.-,-1974).

Spradling, Mary Mace. In Black and Hhite: Afro-Americans in Print: A 167

Guide to Afro-Americans Hho Have Hade Contributions to the United States or AmerTca-£rom16f9-to1969.-(iza-la~az-oo' }llchig-an:Ka.Tama zoo Lib-rary -sys t~~-:-1971) •

\.Jhaley, Sara Stauffer. "t·Jomen' s Studies Abstracts, vol. 1-5, 1972-1976. (Women's Studies Abstract~T~------

Hilliams, Daniel T. Eigb_~ Negro_~_i._1J_1_iogra.r_hies (Ne\v York: Kraus Reprint Co., 1970). 168

APPENDIX

Black Homen Journalists: 182 7 to the Ne1.;r Deal

Lucinda Bragg Adams Associate Editor, l'fus_:i:~al He_ssenger Assistant Editor, A. H. E. Church RevieH

Fanny N. Al~~~~-der Editor, Homan 1 s Department, Alexa~~e_!"_'_s__ H~a:e.ne

Sada J. Anderson Ho~a~'S Era

------··---·-·----Anna DeCosta Banks Hospital HeJ?ald

Carrie A. Bannister

Ida B. Hells-BaE~ett (1862-1931) Editor, Nemphis Free Speech Editor, Chicago Con3_er~~~r Chicag~ Defender ------·-----·-Our Homen and Children New York Age wcmmn' s Er~ Chicago Inter_-:-_()cean Ameri~?n B~_ptist Survey ---Arena Our~ Quarterly Revie1.;r nHob Rule in New Or leans 11 "Southern Horrors" 11 A Red Record" The Reason lVki_ th~ C()l_OE_e_d_.f.\_J!le!"_=!,_c_

Charlotta A. Bass (1890- ) Editor and publisher, The California Eagle Forty__'{ears (autobiography)------···--·--··-·- 169

Delilah Leonti~m B~~sley (1871-1934) Crusading California journalist

~ McLeo~ Bethune (1875-1955) Journal of Negro]i~~tory

Rosa Dixon Bmvser Homan's Era

Carrie Bragg The Lancet

Nary E. Britton (Heb) Our Homen and ·------Children Indianapolis Horld Women '-;-~olurnn-; Lexing!_o_p. Herald Courant Cleveland Gazette Cincinnati Commercial ------~- -~- --- American Catholic Tribune

Lucy H. Brown Associate Editor, Hospital_Her~_ld

Sue H. Brown Editor, Iowa Colored Homan

Nannie Hel~n_Bur!~ghs (1883-1961) Colo~~d~erican Magazine Voic~~ the Negro

Cora C. Calhoun Editor, Homan's Department, Chatta~ooga_.::!_ustice

Agnes C_arroll Assistant Editor, Negro Music Journal

Mary Ann Shadd Cary (1823-1893) Editor, Provincial Freeman Notes on qan~da W~stCPamphlet) The North Star ------The Ne1:..r National Era The Advocate Anglo-Ajrican_ Haga~J.ne 170

Kate D. Chapman (1870- ) ------The Christian Recorder Our Women and Children American B?ptist

~Irs. F. N. H. Clair The Banner

Olive B. Clanton

Carrie W. Clifford Department for Women, Alexander' ?_I:1ag~zj.p.e

Dora J. Cole Homan's Era

Rebecca Cole Homan's Era

Lucretia Ne\vman----- Coleman Our Women and Children A. H. E. Church Revie~v Poor Ben(Mvel)____ _

Mary V. Cook (Grace Ermine) Women's department, kn~Jc~n-~-~!~t, 1886 Soutl) Ca~olin_~_l_!ib_!_~n~, 1887 Educational department, Our \~omen ?~4_Ch~l~~en

Anna Julia Cooper (1858-1964) Southland

Fanny J. Coppin (1835-1912) A. N. E.------Church Review Reminiscences of School Life and Hit.J._!:S on_T<:a~h_~~g- (book)

Julia ~-ngwood -~

Hartha H. Crozier Southern Teachers' Advocate

Evelyn Cunningham Pittsburgh__ ~ourier

Our Homen and 171

Irene DeHortie ~~oman's Era

Mrs. W. A. Dove The Life and Sermons of Rev. W. A. Dove

Ethel Dre'"' Dunl~ Negro__ World

Elizabeth P:!2.~~ Ensley Woman's Era

Jessie Redmon Fauset (1886-1961) Managing Editor, Crisis ~tuni!:Y_ New York Age

Charlotte Forten (1838-1915) Atl~nti_<::_ Monthly National Anti-Slavery Standard Correspondent to Scribner ,-s 1'Iag_?z!ne

Hazel Garland Editor, Pittsburgh C?~rier

Amy J ac92:1es~~E.~~ Philoso~_1l:n_LQ_pinions_~f Marcus Ga~vey (1925)

Medora Gould Woman's Era

Amanda V ~- Gray Pharmaceutical Editor, Journal of the National Hedical Association

Sarah Greenfield ------Department for Homen, Ho~ard's Negro American Haga~ine Department for lvomen, A. M. E. Church Revie,v:A M~~t~)-_,'\T_ __Journal Devote_d to All Q1.1es t:!-on§_l:_f!rt_~:!:_ning_t;_o the _!tdu~§!_t;_iona~-L Religj._Q~~~ocia1 _?n

Frances Ellen Wat~J._p~J~arper (1825-1911) A. M. E. Church Revie''' Alumni Hagazine Southland Anglo-A~rican Hagazine New _Yor~JE~ependen t Christian Recorder Ne'v Yor~j\ge lola Leroy, or __ Th~_ S~admvs .. Up_!_i_!ted (novel) 172

Mattie A. Henderson (1868- ) Editor and publisher, Future State Headlight Avalanche

Pauline F. Hopkins (Sarah A. Allen) Literary Edito~, Colored American Magazine Voice of the Negro ~~ontending Forces (novel) Founded !lew Era Nagazine: An_ Illustrated }fonthly _JJ~voted to the Horld-~Vide Interests----- of the Colored Race in Boston in 1916

Bess Stuart Hughes Hestern Lever

Nrs. C. N. Hughes_ Editor, s;olor~d \.Jom~n' s Nagazine

Frances Jackson \\'oman's Era

Amanda Smith Jemand The Independent

Mrs. Amos Johnson The Western Herald

Hrs. A. E. Johnson The Ivy

Amelia F. Johnson l!~tist Messenger ------Our ~-Jomen and Children American Bapt~~~

Elizabeth Johnson Ho~an's Era

Georgia Douglas Johnson_ (1886-1966) Voice of th~ Neg~ Atlanta ~Jorld Bronze (poems) l'iollv E. Lambert ~wood's Afro-American Jour~l of Fashio~ Special correspondent to the Monitor Plaindealer 173

St. Hatthe~v' s. Lyceum

S. \Villie Layton Hom;n_'S Era

Florence A. Lewis ''Goiden Days"; 11 Philadelphia Press" (articles)

Faith Lichen Correspondent of Nev7 National Era

§ylvia Nann Maples Homa~-,-;-Era

Nrs. 1;.Jill~-~11l~}1atthe1vS (Victoria Earle) (1861-1898) New York Times Ne1v York Herald -· - New York Globe ~'" Yorl_< En te~ris.::_ Corresponding Editor, Homan's Era A. H. ------·-----E. Church Review Boston Advocate Southern Christian Recorder N. Y. Correspondent to National ~eader Detroit Plaindealer The Ph o ~o_g_~aph i c;__li_o_I 1 d ~..Jashington Bee Richmond Planet Catholic Tribune Cleveland Gazette New York Age Hail and Express Wave~Mag_§l:.~ine New York Heekly Family_ Sto_ry Paper Sunday He~c;~ The Earth National Leader Dialect tid-bits for the Associated Press

Nrs. H. A. Me __'2._tg"_c!Y_ Editor, Homa~_' ~~Y'orld

Alice E. Me E\ven Assistant Editor, Herald Associate Editor, The Bap_tist Leader

Alice Hoo~J:!_~_Kane l\foman' s Era Sarah Nitchell Home Department, Afro-American.~ouE_na~f_-~~_!lion

Ida May Moore Colored Ame_y:-~can Maga~ine_

Nellie (Gertrude) Mossell ~-loman's Department, NeH York Freeman .!:IoHar_~~egro _American Mag_§_zine -- ------Homan's Era India~~lis Freeman A. H. E. Church Revie~v Alumni Ha.gazin~ Ringwood's Afro-American Journal of Fashion Phiiade}£hi~ Pre:.?s _Re_p~b-lican ______Ne~v Yoy:-_~--~g~ Christian Recorder The Pfl_~Jad_E_:!lphi~_!:cho T~J.l:lil_a._d~Jphia Times Inde2endent Th'e-,,i~~of the Af_!'o-:::_Amer~an _}'loman (book) Alict:._ Ruth__ ~oore_l2unbar Nel-_son (1875-1935) Opportunity Colliers Hashing_!=_()_!l Eagle Future State 1 ______wo~an -s , __Era-- _ ---Crisis ------A. H. E. Church Revie1:v 1-li lmi_-q._g_~~~--~d vo_c__a t e Honth!_y R~_yieH The Ness_!:!_!!_ger Bos t O!l___Tr an_s c rip_!_

Earnestine Clark Nesbitt Ringwood's Afro--American Journal o:t__F_asll_~on

Heta Pelham Detroit Plaindealer

Hrs. Julius DeaE_~_e.!_~igrew vJestern Lever

Cordelia. Ray A. H. E. Church Revie~v

Florida R. R~~ley Woman's Era

Narion Ridl!:Y_ Woman's Era 175

Josephin~_ _l)_!__. Pierre Ruffin (18Lf2-1924) ------l.Joman' s Era The Bas ton Courant

Harion P. Shadd School Teacher

Emma L. Shields Life and Labor

Susie Shorter Ring~.,~-q_~s___ Af_J:'_~_!\m_e_ri~~n_-:!_

Martha A. Sissle "Homan 1 s Corner, 11 Nationa_!_ DO!!!_f'._~t_ic

Amanda ~mith (1837-1915) Editor, The _Hel~12!:_r: P~~9_1i~l1-~c!_~1_~r~_-tll_ly __!E_ __!:_l~e __ 1)_1_!:_e_~~-~~f__Chil(~ Saving

Annie R. Smith I~i t~!__He~?ld

Cora L. Smith Homan's Era

Lucy Hilmot Smith Our Homen------·------and Children Amer=h_<2_C:!:!1_]3ap tis t, Louisville Ba.E_~is t .} ou_rnal, St. Louis The Journalist t·r~~;;-,-;- Er;------~----- The Boston Advocate l-Taterloo Snelson (rirs. F. G. Snelson) Editor and Publisher, I~ep-L_o___ Ed_~~~~io'(lal___;i_o_urnal

Anne Spence~ Crisis Opportunity

Hrs. C. C. Stumm Boston Advocate Our l.Jomen and Children ------Boston Hub Hatchman 176

Ellen Tarry (1909- ) Feature writer, Birmingham Tru~h, 1926-1929 HPA Federal Hriters Project Various black nevJspapers and Catholic magazines Children's books The Third Door (autobiography)

Adah H. T~lor Afro-America~ Budget

Nary Church Terrell (1863-1954) Indep~ndent North American Revie'v Colored American Hagazine r-Joman I s--Era --· ---·------·-·- A. N. E. Church Review National Association Notes ---~------·-----~~-- -·---··-- Voice_of the Negro A_lexatideE~ s ~lii~~{n~ School Teacher A Colored Homan in a \·Jhite 1-lorld (autobiography)

Lillian Parker Thomas Corresponding Editor of the Free~~

------·--Hinnie Thomas Colored_ Hom~~'£ .l~?z.~ine

Sarah Thompson New National Era

Amelia Til_gEElan Editor, Nus ~ca~ :t-1~ss~_!lge~

_!jary '{_

Maggie 1=_._ Hal~er ( 186 7-19 3L,) Managing Editor, St._____!:_u_k~-"f!~_:t;ald (Richmond, Va.)

Josephine_ Turpin ~-Jash:i,_I!_g_ton Christian Recorder ------Ne•v York Globe. A. M. E. Church Revie.tv Indep~_~c!_~_tl..!:_ Ne\v York Freeman

~arg_aret _!.~~_r_!ay__H_~_13hi~g_~on (1865-1925) Editor, Na !:__ion~:__:.~-~<::_!_a_~ior'l___ !i_C?_te~ Colored American Magazine 1•!oman ,-s--Era______-··-- 177

Adina E. Hhite Art Department, Rin~•-mocl~s-~:f.~o-=-~~eri~~!l__ Journa_l __ .Q_f_~_as_hion

Fannie B. ~-,Jilliams Voice of _the _.l'!_~_gro A. H. E. Church Revie\v Col~~ed A~eri_~an Hagazine Independent \voma;-,- s Era

Ione E. Hood Editor, Temperance Department, Our _I'!E.!l!~n and Children The~-

Josephine S. Yates (R. K. Potter) (1852-1912) Educational Department, ~olo~~~~~~rica~~~ag~~ine ------·---Homan's Era Voice __()_f.._t:E_e_~<:_8r