Southern Horrors (1892) is a pamphlet by Ida B. Wells. Published several months after a white mob destroyed the office of her prominent Memphis newspaper, the Free Speech, Southern Horrors is an impassioned work of investigative journalism and political criticism from a leading activist of the nineteenth century. “Nobody in this section of the country believes the old thread-bare lie that Negro men rape white women. If Southern white men are not careful, they will overreach themselves and public sentiment will have a reaction; a conclusion will then be reached which will be very damaging to the moral reputation of their women.” After publishing these words in a May 1892 edition of the Memphis Free Speech, Ida B. Wells left for a brief vacation in New York—no doubt inspired by the numerous threats made against her life at the time. In her absence, a mob of white men destroyed the newspaper’s office, leaving no trace of her extensive research on the last half century of violence perpetrated against African Americans in the name of white supremacy. Undeterred, Wells published Southern Horrors just months later, combining personal reflections on the incident with daring investigative reporting on the widespread practice of lynching in the American South. With a beautifully designed cover and professionally typeset manuscript, this edition of Ida B. Wells’ Southern Horrors is a classic of African American literature reimagined for modern readers.
The Afro-Americans of Memphis denounced the lynching of three of their best citizens, and urged and waited for the authorities to act in the matter and bring the lynchers to justice. No attempt was made to do so, and the black men left ...
Gain insight into the life of Ida B. Wells as Southern Horrors and Other Writings illustrates how events like yellow fever epidemic transformed her into a internationally famous journalist, public speaker, and activist at the turn of the ...
Aileen S. Kraditor ( Chicago : Quadrangle Books , 1968 ) , 262–265 ; Wheeler , New Women of the New South ; Elna Green , Southern Strategies : Southern Women and the Woman Suffrage Question ( Chapel Hill : University of North Carolina ...
Activist Ida B. Wells took it upon herself to document this shameful practice and its prevalence throughout the region and, to a lesser extent, the entire country in a series of seminal volumes, including Southern Horrors.
In this new edition Jacqueline Jones Royster sheds light on the specific events, such as the yellow fever epidemic, that spurred Wells’s progression towards activism.
Read & Co. History is proudly republishing this classic work now in a brand new edition complete with introductory chapters by Irvine Garland Penn and T. Thomas Fortune.
Southern Horrors: Lynch Law in All Its Phases is a pamphlet which documented research on a lynching.
We are delighted to publish this classic book as part of our extensive Classic Library collection. Many of the books in our collection have been out of print for decades, and therefore have not been accessible to the general public.
If this work can contribute in any way toward proving this, and at the same time arouse the conscience of the American people to a demand for justice to every citizen, and punishment by law for the lawless, I shall feel I have done my race ...
The south was full of turmoil and this book has a lot to tell in a small format. The book details the outlandish nature of the crimes against the men and women identified.