Ida B. Wells: "Southern Horrors"

_{Ida B. Wells-Barnett, journalist and civil rights activist. Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, Photographs and Prints Division, The New York Public Library.}

Ida B. Wells was a journalist who focused most of her writing on the horrors of lynching after her friend was lynched in 1892. Wells' work documented 728 lynchings that occurred in the previous 8 years. The victims varied in age and were both men and women. However, the majority of victims were black men falsely accused of raping white women. Other victims were black business men whose success threatened their white rivals. Frederick Douglass wrote a letter to Wells informing her that she was a brave woman for outlining the horrors of lynching in her work and that there weren’t many who did so. Wells wanted to purposefully target the American people as a whole in order to “arouse” their consciences.

_{Letter from Frederick Douglass to Ida B. Wells in Southern Horrors, p. 3.} Douglass thanking Wells, “Brave woman! You have done your people and mine a service which can neither be weighed nor measured” (Douglass). Douglass’s words to Wells about her power, “here has been no word equal to it in convincing power. I have spoken, but my word is feeble in comparison.” Through her writing she exemplified lots of grit and perseverance. Her writing was a form of resistance against segregation and the mistreatment of blacks.

_{Southern Horrors, Ida B. Wells-Barnett, 1892.} Ida B. Wells led the anti-lynching crusades. Wells was a founding member of the NAACP. Wells also created the first African-American kindergarten in her community and fought for Women's Suffrage. Wells fought against prejudice, no matter what potential dangers she faced. She was also acknowledged by Frederick Douglass for all of her hard work.